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ROBERT BACON 

LIFE AND LETTERS 




Robert Bacon, Assistant Secretary of State 



ROBERT BACON 

LIFE AND LETTERS 

BY 
JAMES BROWN SCOTT 

INTRODUCTION BY THE 
HONORABLE ELIHU ROOT 



FOREWORD BY 
FIELD MARSHAL THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL HAIG 




ILLUSTRATED 

FROM 
PHOTOGRAPHS 



G^ARDENCITY NEWYORK 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

1923 



3 1^3 54 



I 



COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 

INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 

AT 

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS. GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 

first Edition 



DEC -/ (923 









CONTENTS 

PACK 

Introduction ix 

Foreword xv 

M. Robert Bacon xvii 

PART I— THE BACONS 

CHAPTER 

I. A Goodly Inheritance Ij 

PART II— EARLY LIFE 

11. Harvard College Days 25 

III. The Race Around the World 30 

IV. Marriage 64 

PART III— THE WORLD OF FINANCE 

V. The Relief of the Government 69 

VI. The United States Steel Corporation .... 80 

VII. The Northern Securities Company 86 

PART IV— THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

VIII. The Assistant Secretary 105 

The Peace of the Marblehead no 

Intervention of the United States in Cuba, 1906. . 113 

The Dominican Loan 119 

The Porto-Rican Church Property Settlement . . 121 

The Panama Affair 123 

IX. Secretary of State 125 

A Permanent Court of International Justice . . . 126 
The Conference for the Conservation of Natural Re- 
sources 1^8 

V 



vi CONTENTS 

PART V— THE MISSION TO FRANCE 

CBAFTER PAGE 

X. The American Ambassador 133 

The Paris Flood 134 

Colonel Roosevelt's Visit 136 

XI. The "Friend of France" 148 

The Baptism of America 148 

Diplomatic Colleagues 153 

Resignation 160 

PART VI— FELLOW OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 

XII. In Service TO Harvard 171 

PART VII— FOR BETTER RELATIONS WITH OUR 
LATIN-AMERICAN NEIGHBOURS 

XIII. The Visit TO South America 181 

PART VIII— PREPAREDNESS 

XIV. The First Years of the War 201 

XV. Plattsburg 126 

XVI. Candidacy for the Senate 256 

PART IX— MILITARY SERVICE 

XVII. Post Commandant at Chaumont 275 

XVIII. Chief of Mission at British General Headquar- 
ters 33^ 

XIX. After the Armistice 4^3 

XX. Home 443 

Index 449 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Robert Bacon, Assistant Secretary of State . 



Frontispiece 



y 



FACING PAGE 



M: 



Captain Daniel C. Bacon, grandfather of Robert Bacon . 
The Gamecock commanded by Captain Daniel C. Bacon 
Mrs. William B. Bacon, mother of Robert Bacon 

Robert Bacon at the age of two 

Birthplace of Robert Bacon, Jamaica Plain, Mass. 
Robert Bacon, Harvard undergraduate 

Robert Bacon, 1880 

William B. Bacon, father of Robert Bacon 

The Harvard Crew, Robert Bacon rowing seven . 

Elihu Root, Secretary of State 

In the courtyard of the Palace at Havana, Cuba 
The last photograph of the Roosevelt Cabinet with 

Bacon as Secretary of State 

Certificate of the "Tennis Cabinet" .... 

Place des Invalides during the Flood, winter of 191c 

The American Embassy during the Flood 

Colonel Roosevelt seeing the sights of Paris 

Theodore Roosevelt, portrait by Laszlo 

Robert Bacon, Ambassador to France .... 

Ambassador Bacon and Baron D'Estoumelles de Con 

stant 

Robert Bacon at home, Westbury, Long Island 

American Ambulance Hospital 

Robert Bacon, in the service of the R. A. M. C. 



4"' 

4 

4- 

13 
28 
29 
60 
61 
76 
77' 

124 

125 

140' 

141 

156 

157 

172 

173 
204 

205- 

220"^ 



viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

Fere enTardenois, where Mr. Bacon got his first wounded, 

1914 221 

Robert Bacon at Plattsburg 268 

Robert Bacon at Plattsburg in 1915 269 

Military Drill, Plattsburg 284 

Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig 285 

Chateau de Brunehautpre, Montreuil 348 

Colonel Wagstaff of the British Army with Colonel 

Bacon at Montreuil 349 

The battlefield of St. Quentin 364 

Col. Robert Bacon and Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig 365 

General Petain presenting the Legion d'Honneur. . . 4I2 

First American recipients of the Legion d'Honneur . . 4I3 
Lunch in the open, on top of the tunnel of the Canal de 

St. Quentin 428 

Mr. and Mrs. Bacon and their grandchildren . . . 429 



INTRODUCTION 

It is difficult for any one who knew Robert Bacon well to 
write about him with such reserve as will commend itself to 
strangers. To his friends only superlatives seem adequate. 
To them what he was seems infinitely more than the record of 
any career could possibly be. It was a distinguished and useful 
career, yet his usefulness consisted not merely in what he did 
but still more in the impression produced by his persuasive 
and compelHng personality and his intense convictions upon 
the great events in which he played a part. 

His life began in the year before the American Civil War and 
it ended in the year after the great World War. It covered a 
period of extraordinary development and change throughout 
the world — a period in which consciously or unconsciously the 
whole world was in motion and when directing influences for 
good or evil were potent beyond experience. He was born on 
the shore of Massachusetts Bay and he received from an un- 
broken line of Puritan ancestors, by direct succession, the es- 
sential underlying qualities of character which have made the 
spirit and developing force of Puritan New England such an 
amazing formative power in the life of this continent. He was 
educated at Harvard and in later life was long an elected over- 
seer of the University, and finally he became a fellow, one of the 
little group of five who with the President and Treasurer con- 
stitute the College Corporation and direct its affairs. He be- 
came a banker in Boston and then a banker in New York. He 
was made Assistant Secretary of State and then Secretary of 
State and then Ambassador to_France, and finally an officer 
of the American Army in France. These things came to him 
without any intriguing or wire-pulling or pushing or use of in- 
fluence. They followed his quahties naturally; they were the 
by-products of strenuous labour for others unselfishly directed 
with Httle or no thought of self, inspired by sympathy, friend- 
ship, loyalty, love of country, humanity, idealism. 



X INTRODUCTION 

He was a man of curious and delightful combinations and 
contrasts. He was a superb creature physically. It was a 
pleasure to behold him as it is to look upon any natural object 
which approaches the perfection of beauty. But he was al- 
together modest and free from conceit. He never gave the 
impression that he was thinking about his own perfections, 
because he really was always thinking about something else, 
and the high light of his manly beauty was in the face always 
luminous with kindly thoughts and sympathies for other per- 
sons and other things. He was a renowned athlete in college 
and he was an athlete and a sportsman all his life long— an all- 
around devoted enthusiastic sportsman. But underlying the 
joyfulness in sport there was still a Puritan conscience which 
regulated the control of life. The incident of the boat race 
illustrates this very well. He was Assistant Secretary of State 
at Washington. The Harvard- Yale boat race was about to 
occur at New Haven. It was most interesting for him. He 
had rowed in the Harvard crew himself when in college. On 
this particular occasion his three sons were to row, one in each 
of the three Harvard boats. He was most anxious to see it 
and to join the multitude of college friends who would be there. 
He had been overworking and overdriving himself in Washing- 
ton. Everybody in the State Department wanted him to get 
the recreation and he started by the evening train. The next 
morning he appeared at the State Department and explained 
that he had left some things undone in his office and that by 
the time he had got to Jersey City he found that he simply 
could not go on and so he took the midnight train back to 
Washington to attend to his duties and let the boat race go. 
A conscience born in Puritan England some centuries before 
had made the admired and joyous sportsman incapable of neg- 
lecting a duty for a pleasure. 

The material which the devoted friendship of Doctor Scott 
has selected and arranged in this book indicates that Robert 
Bacon was a full member of what before the war used to be 
called "Society," on both sides of the Atlantic. His love of 
sport, education and training, and wealth and personal attrac- 
tions naturally put him into that relation. He had two very 
rare and admirable qualities — he had charm and he had dis- 
tinction — qualities that cannot be defined or even described but 



INTRODUCTION xi 

which can be felt, and he had highly developed the social in- 
stincts and sympathies. He was everywhere admired and wel- 
come and he was a part in a great number of affectionate friend- 
ships which with intimate acquaintance and good manners 
form the true basis of social life. He was in and of society; yet 
he was the most domestic of men; faithful, loyal, devoted, with 
a heart always full to overflowing with love for his home and his 
wife and his children. He was responsive to a multitude of 
friends; always ready with universal sympathy; intensely in- 
terested in difficult and engrossing tasks, yet he was always a 
wonderful lover for one woman only throughout his Hfe. What 
the war and all its overturnings may have done to that old pre- 
war social Hfe no one can yet fully measure. It was a product 
of aristocracy, but the war has demonstrated that it possessed 
some qualities which the world, democratic or otherwise, cannot 
afford to do without. 

Bacon fell naturally into the first rank; as an undergraduate, 
as an alumnus, as a banker, finding his place in the greatest of 
American banking houses, and as a diplomatist. He brought 
to American diplomacy qualities and attainments of the highest 
value, a strong sense of right and courage to maintain it, entire 
freedom from subserviency or timidity, sympathetic consider- 
ation and kindly feeling for other peoples, and a most effective 
sincerity and frankness. He helped mightily toward sub- 
stituting the new method of frank and open intercourse for the 
old type of subtlety and deception in diplomacy. . He had the 
social training that is so useful; and he always understood his 
subject; no pains were too great for that. He was fair and 
honest in diplomacy as he was in sport and in business. 

The greatest public services of Robert Bacon's life, however, 
were rendered on the basisof comparatively little official author- 
ity. His genuine affection for the French people added to the 
strong predilections of his English descent, his knowledge of 
European politics, his intimate acquaintance with the men and 
women who were significant in the public life of England and 
of the continent, his special interest in European affairs incident 
to his service as ambassador, all gave to him a sense of the true 
meaning and possibilities of the Austrian assault upon Servia 
and the German assault upon Belgium at the end of July, 1914. 
He saw in this concerted movement immediately, the purpose 



xii INTRODUCTION 

and the danger of world domination; and he saw America rest- 
ing in a condition of complacent incredulity similar to that 
which confronted Lord Roberts in Great Britain when he strove 
to make the British people understand that Germany was pre- 
paring to attack. His whole soul rose in protest against the 
fatuous indifference which remains blind to danger until it is 
too late; and he became an active and ardent apostle of im- 
mediate mihtary preparation and speedy entry into the war. 
He repudiated indignantly the idea of neutrality between right 
and wrong. With voice and pen, in private and in public, he 
urged immediate action. He went up and down the country 
arguing and exhorting, demonstrating the danger and pointing 
out the need of American hberty for defense on the battle line 
where the liberties of western civiHzation were at stake. He 
and his devoted wife threw themselves with enthusiasm into the 
work of that American aid for the care of the wounded in 
France, before our entrance into the war, which did so much 
to express and to foster American sympathy with the Allied 
cause. While he superintended construction and drove am- 
bulances and arranged with officials, Mrs. Bacon raised vast 
sums of money and secured material and organized personnel 
in America, and they became the foremost single agency in that 
beneficent work which did so much for the wounded and so 
much more for America. When the training camps, to which 
Plattsburg has given its name, were organized the former Am- 
bassador, distinguished, wealthy, far up beyond the military 
age, but an athlete still, set the example of service in the ranks 
to do the uttermost that it was possible for an American to do 
toward meeting the inevitable emergency. He should be 
counted as one of the greatest of the personal forces which grad- 
ually moved the American people to the point of entering the 
great conflict just before it was too late. 

Robert Bacon rendered one further public service of the 
first importance. The great danger of composite forces carry- 
ing on war together is in misunderstandings, unsettled differ- 
ences of opinion, personal discords and resentments, and the 
feebleness and irresolution which flow from divided councils. 
We all remember the repeated efforts made by Germany 
through all sorts of agencies during the war to bring about in- 
formal conferences about the aims of the war. Many very 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

good people thought such overtures should be accepted as a 
matter of course in the interest of peace; but many better in- 
formed or more mindful of the working of human nature per- 
ceived that the true object and necessary effect of such con- 
ferences during hostilities would be to put the AUies into con- 
troversy and destroy their unity of action. That is, that if 
discussions were opened then upon the aims of the war, just 
what has happened in Europe since the armistice would have 
happened with the German army still in the field, and Germany 
would have won against a divided foe. In a war carried on by 
alHes, however friendly, one of the first and most difficult req- 
uisites is to keep the allies together, pursuing a single purpose 
by concerted action. When America entered the war she in- 
troduced not only a needed element of strength but another 
element of possible misunderstanding and divided purpose. 
Robert Bacon was not persona grata with the Administration — 
the role he had played in urging preparation and action made 
that impossible; but the experience and sound judgment of 
General Pershing led him to see that here was an agent of the 
first force for the accomplishment of the vital military purpose 
of maintaining real harmony among the Allied forces. Accord- 
ingly, after a sufficient experience as commandant of the head- 
quarters at Chaumont, to become thoroughly famiHar with 
American organization and military opinion, Colonel Bacon 
assumed the head of the American J/Iilitary -Mission to the 
British Headquarters of Sir Douglas Haig. From that coign 
of vantage until the close of the war every quality Robert Bacon 
possessed was actively devoted to the purpose of maintaining 
good understanding and harmony among the leaders of the 
Allied forces. All his experience in business and in diplomacy, 
his Anglo-American traits, his Franco-American affections, his 
tremendous and untiring energy, his knowledge of languages 
and of manners, his liberal education, his famiHarity and facil- 
ity in sports of every kind, his social training, his personal charm 
and distinction, his kindliness and consideration, his intense 
devotion to the common purpose — all of these fitted him above 
all other men whom America could produce to prevent the fatal 
misfortune of dissension and discord. 

Elihu Root. 



FOREWORD 

Concerning the general scope of this book I am not quaHfied 
to speak, for my knowledge of Robert Bacon is confined to the 
period when he was serving as liaison officer with the British 
forces in France. During that period, however, I saw much 
of him and formed for him a great regard; so that I am very- 
ready to accede to the request made to me that I should write 
a short foreword to this account of his life. 

From our first meeting, he struck me as a most honest, up- 
right man, and absolutely to be trusted. My early impressions 
of him were confirmed and strengthened by longer acquaint- 
ance, till acquaintance ripened into friendship. His obvious 
sincerity and sympathy drew the confidence and affection of all 
he met, while to a fine character and courteous manner he 
joined ability beyond the common and a wide experience of 
men and affairs. 

I need scarcely say that the work he had taken in hand he 
did well, for it was work for which he was peculiarly fitted. The 
unvarying excellence of the relations which prevailed between 
the American and British armies owed much to his quiet in- 
fluence. Yet with all his understanding and sympathy for the 
British point of view he never for one moment forgot that he 
was an American. Only, he was a man of large mind and great 
heart, very keen on the success of our common cause which, he 
believed as we did, stood for justice and freedom. 

He and I often rode together and I used to take him with me 
to see the troops. On these occasions, I treated him exactly 
as if he were my personal staff officer, and he and I and my 
A.D.C. would lunch together out of the lunch box we took with 
us. It happened from time to time that we visited together a 
sector where an offensive was impending, and Colonel Bacon 
would be surprised by seeing that our guns were very active 
and signs everywhere that something was on foot. In such 
case I had the most complete confidence in his discretion, al- 



I 



xvi FOREWORD 

though I could not explain to him beforehand what our inten- 
tions were. 

He was an admirable companion, charming and pleasant 
even on the blackest days. His devotion to the cause for which 
we fought is shown by the fact that, despite his years, he went 
through a volunteer camp for training before America came into 
the war. Once America was in, he was desperately anxious 
that America should show up well in the field, and took immense 
interest in the training which American divisions were going 
through with the British. In this connection in particular he 
was able to be of great help to us, and he never spared himself. 

A thorough believer in the Anglo-Saxon race, he often spoke 
of the future as being with America and Great Britain. He 
did much to cement the friendship of our two countries, and in 
doing so showed himself to possess in preeminent degree those 
splendid qualities of our common stock which he so much ad- 
mired. 

Haig, 

of Bemersyde, 
F. M. 
26th July, 1923. 



M. ROBERT BACON 

II n'y a pas un ami de rAmerique a Paris qui n'ait ete 
frappe de stupeur en apprenant la mort soudaine de M. R. I. 
Bacon. II avait passe toute la guerre aupres de nous, toujours 
si vaillant, si devoue, si vivant! La victoire avait couronne 
ses plus intimes esperances: c'etait un ami de la France, comme 
elle n'en rencontrera jamais; car il faut les jours d'epreuves 
pour susciter de tels devouements."... Et voila! Une de- 
peche nous apprend que ce brave cceur a fini de battre ! 

Je n'ai cesse de I'aimer depuis que je I'ai connu. II etait 
alors ambassadeur a Paris. Nous nous embarquames sur le 
meme bateau, la France, quand, au lendemain du desastre du 
Titanic, la mission du Comite France-Amerique se rendait a 
New- York. 

II avait echappe par miracle a la catastrophe, car son billet 
etait pris et sa cabine retenue; je ne sais quelle affaire I'avait 
retarde. Comme je le felicitais, il me dit, avec son gentil 
courage: " Je serais, maintenant, au fond de I'ocean, car, comme 
ambassadeur, je n'avais pas le droit de quitter le paquebot, 
tant qu'il restait un Americain a bord." 

Quand la guerre eut eclate, le premier telegramme qui me 
vint d'Amerique etait de lui: "La France se bat, j'accoursl" 
Nous allames le chercher au Havre, juste a la veille de la ba- 
taille de la Marne. II avait I'impatience du front. II s'y 
rendit, a peine debarque, sur une puissante automobile, et il 
commenga a relever les blesses sur les champs de bataille de la 
Marne et de TAisne. Combien de fois nous avons fait le trajet 
de Paris a Fere-en-Tardenois, oia il avait ete loge chez le mede- 
cin et ou se trouvait alors le quartier general du marechal 
French ! 

II s'etait consacre, d'abord, aux mille devoirs de secours qu'il 
avait su se creer a lui-meme. Mais, bientot, son action s'elar- 
git. J'ai raconte quelque part un entretien que j'eus avec lui. 



xviii M. ROBERT BACON 

" Je retourne en Amerique, en passant par Londres, me disait- 
il; je vais aller voir sir Edward Grey. II faut que TAmerique 
entre dans la en guerre, et tout de suite... (C'etait en 191 5). Je 
le sais, il y a de grandes difficultes. Mais nous y arriverons. II 
y a, en ce moment, 50,000 Americains au plus qui comprennent 
que c'est notre interet et notre devoir d'intervenir: il s'agit de 
faire en sorte que ces 50,000 deviennent 50 millions. Voila 
le but a atteindre." II partit et la chose se fit comme il I'avait 
prevue. 

Bacon fit le voyage a diverses reprises. II pensait a tout, 
a la propagande, aux emprunts, aux secours publics et prives. 
Une flamme brillait dans ses jeux: c'etait I'ame de I'Amerique 
a la fois genereuse et realiste. 

Enfin, "les 50,000 etaient devenus 50 millions"; la guerre 
etait declaree. II revint encore; mais, cette fois, en costume 
d'officier, ce qui avait ete son grand reve, un peu la coquetterie 
de ce magnifique gargon qui portait beau, malgre que ses che- 
veux et sa moustache eussent commence a blanchir. Attache, 
en qualite de colonel, a I'etat-major du general Pershing, il 
etait enfin "soldat" et sur "le front." Alors commenga pour 
lui une vie nouvelle toute d'activite, de devouement et de sacri- 
fice. II donna sa vie pour ses deux patries. 

Parmi tant de circonstances qui restent dans mon souvenir, 
comment oublier la visite qu'il fit, un jour, dans nos lignes, 
accompagne de Mme Bacon, qui donnait toute son activite 
feminine a la meme cause? Nous allames visiter les ecoles et 
les hopitaux sur le Chemin des Dames. Nous assistames a 
I'une des chaudes journees de la guerre; les populations du 
malheureux village de Paissy se souviennent et se souviendront 
toujours de I'encouragement et du reconfort que la presence de 
ces amis, venus de si loin, leur apportaient! Saint-Die aussi 
connut la generosite inlassable de M. et de Mme Bacon. Tous 
ces amis de la premiere heure ont fait le possible et I'impossible; 
je repeterai ce que j'ai dit deja: "en Amerique, c'est la bien- 
faisance qui a fait le chemin a I'alliance." 

Ces amis incomparables se faisaient, de la France, une idee 
si haute que rien que d'avoir ete aimee ainsi, elle en est vene- 
rable et consacree a jamais. 

Je voudrais que les noms de nos ambassadeurs americains 
fussent inscrits, quelque part, dans un endroit ou passe le 



M. ROBERT BACON xix 

peuple de Paris. On mettrait, sur la plaque, le mot de Myron 
Herrick: "Paris appartient au monde." Et aussi celui de 
Robert I. Bacon: "La France se bat. J'accours!" 

^Ce sont la, pour les peuples, des deux cotes, de magnifiques 
heritages. II ne convient pas qu'ils perissent. 

Gabriel Hanotaux. 
de I'Academie fran^aise. 



PART I 
THE BACONS 



^^ Like father y like son'' 



CHAPTER I 
A Goodly Inheritance 

Moral character, energy, and industry are ascribed to 
Nathaniel, the first of the Bacons to set foot upon the soil 
of New England. They are the qualities of each successive 
generation. They were notably conspicuous in Robert 
Bacon. 

The Bacons did not live for themselves alone; they held these 
qualities as a trust for the benefit of others. They devoted 
their talents in first instance to the service of the little colony 
of Plymouth, later to the service of the colony of Massachusetts 
Bay, and lastly to the service of this Union of States which we 
call the United States. And the mental horizon broadened in 
each case and with each successive generation. 

The Nathaniel Bacon from whom Robert Bacon was de- 
scended came direct from England, from Stratton, in the county 
of Cornwall. He arrived in Barnstable in 1639, the year of the 
settlement of that town in the neck of Cape Cod, to seek his 
fortune in America. He was thus one of the first settlers of the 
Uttle town which counts among its notables James Otis, whose 
speech against the Writs of Assistance sounded the note of 
Revolution, and Lemuel Shaw, the famous Chief Justice of 
Massachusetts and one of the greatest of American judges. 
On the house lot assigned to him, still owned by his descendants, 
Nathaniel Bacon built his house in 1642, which stood for 187 
years, occupied during this period by successive Bacons. He 
was a tanner and currier by trade, enjoying the respect and 
confidence of the good people of Barnstable. They showed 
their respect in admitting him a freeman to the company in 
1646; they confessed their confidence by electing him constable 
of the town, and by sending him annually for a period of thir- 
teen years as their deputy to the General Court or legislative 
body. The Governor and seven assistants formed the execu- 
tive and judiciary of Plymouth. From 1667 to his death. 



2 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

which occurred in 1673, Nathaniel Bacon was one of these 
assistants, and in 1658 and in 1667 a member of the Council of 
War. He was apparently a man of judgment and of parts; he 
was certainly a man of prominence and of influence in the 
colony. 

There are other evidences of his standing in the community. 
The common title of men and women among the first settlers 
of the Cape was Goodman and Goodwife. Only those belong- 
ing to more than ordinarily distinguished families or holding 
offices of reputed dignity and importance were addressed as 
Mr. or Mrs. Etiquette was strictly guarded and observed. 
In this hotbed of democracy "the distinction," it has been 
said, "between the Roman patricians and plebeians was not of 
greater importance."^ In a list of ninety inhabitants of the 
town of Barnstable, Nathaniel Bacon was one of ten having 
the title "Mr." 

A custom of a very different kind had grown up, which sorely 
tried the patience of the godly. Men among the first settlers 
allowed their beards to grow long. Therefore drastic action 
was taken, as was the wont in such cases. In 1649 ^^e good 
men of Barnstable removed their beards. The leading lights 
of the town got together, and drafted and signed the following 
paper: 

Forasmuch as the wearing long hair, after the manner of the Rus- 
sians and barbarous Indians, has begun to invade New England, 
contrary to the rule of God's word, and the commendable custom of 
all the godly, until within this few years, we, the magistrates, who have 
subscribed this paper (for the showing of our own innocency in this 
behalf), do declare and manifest our dislike and detestation against 
the wearing of such long hair, as against a thing uncivil and unmanly, 
whereby men do deform themselves, and offend sober and modest 
men, and do corrupt good manners.^ 

Nathaniel Bacon's distinguished descendant heeded the ad- 
monition as if he had been a signer. 

Tobacco, also, was a source of worry to the little community. 
Its use was therefore early prohibited under a penalty, and its 
fumes were compared by learned divines to "the smoke of the 

^Frederick Freeman, The History of Cape Cod (1858), vol. i, p. 178. 
^Ibid., p. 179. 



A GOODLY INHERITANCE 3 

bottomless pit." The temptation was, however, too strong 
for many of the Pilgrims. Some of the clergy and other mag- 
nates fell into the habit of smoking, and as they quaintly put 
it "tobacco was set at liberty."^ Likewise in this respect 
Nathaniel Bacon's descendant showed himself of the stricter 
sect. He stood fast where the clergy had faltered. 

The first " Mrs." Bacon of America had a claim of her own to 
the title. She was Hannah, the daughter of the Reverend John 
Mayo, who in 1642, the year of his marriage, was "teacher" 
of the little Church of Barnstable. The reverend gentleman 
was, like his son-in-law, born in England, but, unlike him, he 
was a graduate of an English university. He came over in 
1638 or thereabouts. In 1639 ^^ ^^^ ^^ Barnstable, where a 
year later he was ordained a teaching elder in connection with 
the Reverend John Lothrop, a name which some two centuries 
later John Lothrop Motley has made justly famous. This was 
a great event for the little community and the details were 
carefully chronicled by the participants and have been handed 
down for the edification of their descendants. 

Dayes of Thanksgiveing since we came to Barnestable 

Decemb. 11, 1639, att M^ Hulls house, for Gods exceeding mercye 
in bringing us hither Safely keeping us healthy & Well in c weake 
beginnings & in our church Estate. The day beeing very cold o"^ 
praises to God in publique being ended, wee devided into 3 companies 
to feast togeather, some att Mr. Hulls, some att M^ Maos, some att 
Brother Lumberds senior.- 

Of the ceremony "Mr." Lothrop thus writes in his diary: 

Dayes of Humiliation at Barnestable 

1. Aprill. 15, 1640, att the investing of my Brother Mao into the 
office of a Teaching Ellder, uppo whome, my Selfe Brother Hull, 
Brother Cobb Lay on hands.^ 



^Frederick Freeman, The History of Cape Cod (1858), vol. i, p. 180. 

^Transcribed from the Reverend John Lothrop's original manuscript and published 
in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register (1856), vol. x, p. 39. 

mid., p. 37. 



4 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Elder Mayo was admitted freeman the next year. He made 
his way in the world, becoming first minister of the Second or 
North Church in Boston in 1655. Nine years later Increase 
Mather, famous in the annals of Massachusetts, became his 
assistant, succeeding as second minister nine years later, when 
Mr. Mayo returned to Barnstable to spend the last three years 
of his life. It is reasonable to suppose that such a man would 
be highly respected among Pilgrims and Puritans. He was. 
He is specifically mentioned by Nathaniel Morton, Secretary 
of the colony, who, writing about this time, says that **the 
Lord was pleased of his great goodness, richly to accomplish 
and adorn the colony of Plimouth, as well as other colonies in 
New England, with a considerable number of godly and able 
gospel preachers, who then being dispersed and disposed of, to 
the several churches and congregations thereof, gave light in 
a glorious and resplendent manner, as burning and shining 
lights."^ 

Nathaniel Bacon had married into the ministry. His son, 
Nathaniel, Jr., the second of the name, married in 1673, ^^^ 
year of his father's death, Sarah, the daughter of Governor 
Thomas Hinckley. The children of this marriage, including 
the seconds on Samuel, from whom Robert Bacon was de- 
scended in the direct line, were thus connected with the magi- 
stracy and the ministry, the two most highly considered classes 
of the colony. 

Governor Hinckley was a person of repute; a man of great 
energy of character, "the staff and stay of Church and State." 
His record is set forth with pardonable pride in the inscription 
on the monument raised to his memory in the old graveyard of 
Barnstable: 

Beneath this Stone 
Erected 1829 
Are deposited the Mortal Remains of 

Thomas Hinckley. 

He died A. D. 1706, aged 85 years. 

History bears witness to his piety, 

usefulness and agency 

in the public transactions of his time. 

^New England's Memorial, by Nathaniel Morton (sixth edition, 1855), p. I43. 




Captain- Daniel C. Bacon 

Grandfather of Robert Bacon 




Mrs. William B. Bacon 
Mother of Robert Bacon 



A GOODLY INHERITANCE 5 

The important offices he was called to fill 
Evidence the esteem in which he was held 
by the People 
He was successively elected an assistant in 
The Government of Plymouth Colony 
from 1658 to 1 68 1 and 
Governor, 
Except during the Interruption 
by 
Sir Edmund Andros 
from 1 68 1 to the 
Junction of Plymouth with Massachusetts 
in 1692. 

Epitaphs are proverbially generous, but the Governor filled 
a large space in the history of Barnstable, town and county, 
and in the affairs of Plymouth, He had stood by the cradle 
of the colony in its infancy; from early youth until old age he 
had associated with its great and good men, and he was the 
chief man in the colony when its last chapter was written. 

Edward Bacon, the youngest son of "Deacon" Samuel 
Bacon, trod in the footsteps of his maternal grandfather, in 
that his chief business was public service. For many years he 
occupied a prominent position in the town and county of Barn- 
stable, and in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. He held 
important offices and performed their duties, it is said, with 
signal ability. In the sixty-eight years that made up his life 
he was at sundry times town clerk, a deacon of the Church, 
eight years a selectman, representative to the General Court 
in 1773-4-8-9 and 80, a delegate to the Constitutional Con- 
vention which met in Cambridge in 1779, and Judge of the 
Common Pleas and General Sessions from his appointment in 
1764 to the Revolution. Squire Bacon, as he was commonly 
known, was inclined to favour the established order of things, 
but he stood by his people against the Crown. The character 
and spirit of the man are shown in a little incident in the days 
of the tea troubles of 1773: 

When Mrs. James Perkins — the daughter of our good Mr. Peck, 
and widow of James Perkins who was a prominent patriot and had 
signed the remonstrance to Governor Hutchinson — thought it best 
to retire from Boston, it was a noted loyalist, Squire Bacon (and the 



6 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

more noted because loyalists were very few outside the limits of 
Boston), who welcomed her and her eight children. He wrote that 
he had a house with twenty rooms in it, and that she and her children 
should live there till times were better. It was there in the Bacon 
House, on Cape Cod, that her eldest daughter Elizabeth met and 
married my father's grandfather, Russell Sturgis.^ 

Ebenezer Bacon was the youngest son of the Squire and 
Patience Marston, the daughter of a well-to-do millwright and 
patriot of Salem. Like his father, he was a man of note and 
served the public as justice of the Court of Common Pleas, 
County Treasurer, Registrar of Deeds, Selectman of Barns- 
table, to mention but a few of the offices which he held from 
time to time. He died in i8i i, at the age of fifty-five. In the 
epitaph which adorns his tomb he is said to have been "amia- 
ble," "an affectionate husband," and "a tender parent." 
There is certainly no exaggeration here, for the records of the 
family state that he had sixteen children spread over his three 
matrimonial ventures. The conventional year was observed 
between the first two marriages; the third was a month short. 
The reasons for this seeming haste are thus stated by Miss 
Julia Bacon, Ebenezer's great-granddaughter: "I suppose in 
those days of large families and few servants, men who lost 
their wives were obliged to marry again without losing time in 
order to have someone to take care of their children, but I 
have always been told," she adds, "that Squire Bacon was 
heard to say that *Ma' Bacon [the third of the wives] was the 
prettiest girl at his wife's funeral." The husband's choice was 
confirmed many years later by no less a person than Edward 
Everett, who stayed at the Bacon farm for the second centen- 
ial of Barnstable, after his return from the Court of St. James's, 
as American Minister, and who then stated that he had "never 
seen any lady who presided with such dignity at her own 
table." Tall and stately, and with a face as if of white marble, 
she was, to quote again the great-granddaughter, "very, very 
tidy; on one occasion most unfortunately so, for in her hus- 
band's absence she took the opportunity [and what woman does 
not] to clean house so thoroughly that she burnt up all his 
papers and letters which would now be so interesting. Many 

^Julian Sturgis, From Books and Papers of Russell Sturgis (Oxford, n. d.),pp- 17-18. 



A GOODLY INHERITANCE 7 

of these were deeds and bonds which he held in trust for others, 
and the confusion thus caused was great. "^ The fact that 
husband and wife continued to live together after this episode 
and that she died in a green old age, long after her husband's 
death, is perhaps the greatest testimony to the truth of the 
epitaph that Ebenezer Bacon was indeed an "amiable" per- 
son and an "affectionate husband." 

Robert Bacon's grandfather, Daniel Carpenter Bacon, was 
the first of the family to put to sea since the fateful voyage of 
Nathaniel Bacon to Cape Cod. From Captain Bacon as he is 
called, the love of the sea, born in every Bacon, is said to be 
inherited. From his ancestors he himself inherited a goodly 
share of the prudence, integrity, energy, and uprightness which 
they possessed. He added to the inheritance. Robert Bacon 
was in person and in character the grandson of the Captain. 

In an oration at the First Anniversary of the Cape Cod 
Association, Mr. Henry A. Scudder gives this picture of the 
youthful New Englander of other days: 

The system of early training upon the Cape is singularly calculated 
to develop peculiar attributes of character. I speak not now of that 
learning which is taught in books, but of that discipline which comes 
only from experience and association. We borrow unconsciously 
much of character and destiny from the surrounding circumstances 
of our early life. The career of the Cape Cod boy is a striking illus- 
tration of this fact. By early education he becomes a sailor. From 
his infancy he looks upon the ocean as his future theatre of action. 
The very nursery is to him a scene of preparation. A neatly modelled 
vessel is, in fact, the beau-ideal of his childish fancy. The pigmy 
craft becomes his chosen plaything. At seven, he trims her little 
sails, and navigates her skilfully from creek to creek. At eight, he 
takes preliminary lessons — he ventures upon his favorite element, and 
learns the art of swimming. At ten, he is usually master of the rudi- 
ments, and is ready to embark upon the fortunes of a sailor's life — to 
him so full of novelty and romance. . . . He steps on board his 
gallant ship with a heart full of noble aspirations. He rejoices in the 
office of a cabin-boy, and yet he gazes with a longing eye upon the 
post of foremast-hand. He laughs to think the time is coming when 
he may climb those dizzy heights and do an able seaman's duty . . . 
Rising, step by step, through every grade in regular succession. 



ijulia Bacon, Captain Daniel C. Bacon (MS. Life), pp. 20-21, 38-39. 



8 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

from cabin-boy to captain, he at length assumes that high command, 
and enters upon its duties as a monarch of the deep. Upon that 
floating deck he knows no master now. His will, his word, his judg- 
ment, and his purpose, are supreme. The lives, the fortunes, the 
property and hopes of many are entrusted to his care. With a 
strong and unfailing heart he meets his great responsibilities. Thus 
is he schooled and thus is he fitted for his exalted sphere.^ 

Miss Julia Bacon states that at a very early age the future 
captain "set forth for Boston mounted like d'Artagnan under 
the same circumstances on an old white horse. To complete 
the resemblance he fell in with some boys who called him 
'Bushwhacker,' whereupon he promptly dismounted and 
thrashed them. . . . On arriving at his journey's end, he 
hired someone to ride his horse back to Barnstable and entered 
on his career as a sailor."- This was in 1809. He shipped at 
once before the mast and rose to the command of a vessel 
when Httle more than twenty, just about the age at which his 
grandson graduated from Harvard College. 

Captain Bacon followed the sea for many years, mindful 
alike of his owners' interests and his own in the commercial 
ventures in which he was allowed to participate. He amassed 
a competence, and spent the last years of his life as a ship- 
owner and merchant on his own account, in the Pacific trade, 
especially with China. 

"The style and gentility of a ship and her crew depend upon 
the length and character of the voyage. An India or China 
voyage always is the thing, and a voyage to the Northwest 
coast (the Columbia River or Russian America) for furs is 
romantic and mysterious, and if it takes the ship round the 
world, by way of the Islands and China, it out-ranks them all."^ 
Tried by this standard. Captain Bacon out-ranked them all 
in "the length and character of the voyage." The following 
extract from Miss Julia Bacon's manuscript life of her grand- 
father supplied the evidence and shows the nerve of the skipper 



^Constitution oj the Cape Cod Association with an Account of the Celebration of its First 
Anniversary at Boston, November II, l8^i (1852), pp. 57-58. 

^Daniel C. Bacon (MS. Life), p. 42. 

^Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast (new edition with subsequent 
matter by the Author, 1869), p. 413; (edition of 1899), pp. 380-381. 



A GOODLY INHERITANCE 9 

upon his second trip in command of a merchantman, the 
Packet of Salem: 

In 181 1 Capt. Bacon started on a voyage which was to last three 
years. He went first to England, then to Alaska, where he stayed a 
long time collecting skin to trade in China. Just as his ship was 
ready to sail a vessel arrived from Salem, with the news that war was 
declared with England. He arranged then to leave half his skins with 
the Governor of Alaska in case he was captured by the British. The 
Governor gave him a farewell dinner, and the next day he started for 
Macao. He arrived safely and exchanged his skins for merchandise, 
and by the time he was ready to sail the port had been blockaded by 
the British. 

The winds were fair, and after fretting some days he decided to run 
the blockade, which he did successfully one night. With a splendid 
breeze behind him, he would not risk the chance of losing everything 
by a delay, however short, and wishing to send back the pilot when 
well out to sea, he had a boat run out under the stern and without any 
stop, dropped the poor Chinaman into her much against his will. 

On his next voyage to China he found the man had reached home 
safely. 

A man was kept at the masthead all the way home to look out for 
British ships, . . . but on reaching home he found peace had 
been declared Dec. 24th, 1814, and he was able to sell his cargo at 
great advantage.^ 

Of the voyage of the Packet "Hawser Martingale," one of the 
crew, forced by an accident to leave the ship, writes pleasantly 
in his Jack in the Forecastle: 

At that time the trade with the Indians for furs on the north-west 
coast was carried on extensively from Boston. The ships took out 
tobacco, molasses, blankets, hardware, and trinkets in large quanti- 
ties. Proceeding around Cape Horn, they entered the Pacific Ocean, 
and on reaching the north-west coast, anchored in some of the bays 
and harbours north of Columbia River. They were visited by canoes 
from the shore, and traffic commenced. The natives exchanged their 
furs for articles useful or ornamental. The ship went from port to 
port until a cargo of furs was obtained, and then sailed for Canton, 
and disposed of them to the Chinese for silks and teas. After an 
absence of a couple of years the ship would return to the United 



^Daniel C. Bacon (MS. Life), pp. 64-65 



lo ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

States with a cargo worth a hundred thousand dollars. Some of the 
most eminent merchants in Boston, in this way, laid the foundation of 
their fortunes. 

The trade was not carried on without risk. The north-west coast of 
America at that period had not been surveyed; no good charts had 
been constructed, and the shores were lined with reefs and sunken 
rocks, which, added to a climate where boisterous winds prevailed, 
rendered the navigation dangerous. 

This traffic was attended with other perils. The Indians were 
blood-thirsty and treacherous; and it required constant vigilance on 
the part of a ship's company to prevent their carrying into execution 
some deep-laid plan to massacre the crew and gain possession of the 
ship. For this reason the trading vessels were always well armed 
and strongly manned. With such means of defence, and a reasonable 
share of prudence on the part of the Captain, there was but little 
danger. . . . 

She [the Packet] was to be commanded by Daniel C. Bacon, a 
young, active, and highly intelligent ship-master, who a few years 
before, had sailed as a mate with Capt. William Sturgis and had thus 
studied the principles of his profession in a good school, and under a 
good teacher. 

He had made one successful voyage to that remote quarter in com- 
mand of a ship. 

Captain Bacon, as is known to many of my readers, subsequently 
engaged in mercantile business in Boston, and for many years, until 
his death, not long since, his name was the synonym of mercantile 
enterprise, honour and integrity. . . . 

Although his appearance commanded respect, it was not calculated 
to inspire awe; and few would have supposed that beneath his quiet 
physiognomy and benevolent cast of features were concealed a fund 
of energy and determination of character which could carry him safely 
through difficulty and danger.^ 

The running of the blockade shows that Captain Bacon was 
a man of spirit. He picked out men of spirit to command his 
ships, as the following incident sufficiently indicated: 

Captain Fuller was in command of one of Grandfather's ships once 
in China when some sailors deserted from a British man of war and 
shipped on his vessel. The British Commander sent word to Captain 
Fuller to give up the men or he would come to take them. 

^John S. Sleeper, Jack in the Forecastle; or, Incidents in the Early Life of Hawser 
Martingale (i860), pp. 145-146, 148, 156. ' 



A GOODLY INHERITANCE ii 

Captain Fuller replied that he had two guns on his ship and he 
should only use one of them, but if the man-of-war attempted to touch 
one of his men, he would blow her out of the water. 

With that he set sail and as his ship was faster than the English- 
man's, he carried off the sailors.^ 

There is no dearth of information about this man of the sea. 
There are many interesting passages to be found in his "logs"; 
in the instructions which Mr. Theodore Lyman prepared for 
those in his employ, and in the captain's own instructions to 
Eben Bacon, Robert Bacon's uncle. The skipper, with whom 
this future captain made his first voyage, was instructed "to 
obey orders if it broke owners." On a later occasion Captain 
Bacon was himself instructed by the Puritan owner to "live 
well, but live frugally." "I am not displeas'd," he says in 
another letter, "because I have these extra things to pay for, 
but because it alarms me, lest it may be the beginning of need- 
less expense. The profits in trade now will not justify an un- 
necessary waste of money. Besides, I prefer to have a penny 
saved to two that is earned. No man can be poor if he is willing 
and knows how to save. 

"You know my feelings on the subject. It is highly gratify- 
ing to see prudence and discretion mark a young man's steps. 
Canton is a place where much may be wasted; indeed, there 
seems a fatality that attends that part of the business there. 
I hope it will be your lot to escape the very many dangers which 
surround all who go to that place to do business."^ 

In this atmosphere of prudence and frugality Captain Bacon 
grew up and prospered, and he passed on to his family the 
maxims which he had received from others and which he him- 
self had followed. 

Before taking up the captain's instructions to his son, there 
are a couple of passages from one of the logs of an early voyage 
which have more than a passing interest. Under date of 
March 30, 181 1, the young seaman said: 

Light winds with pleasant weather and smooth Sea which is very 
pretty sailing after heavy blows, but men are such uneasy mortals 

^Daniel C. Bacon (MS. Life), pp. 195-196. 
Hbid., p. 105. 



12 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

that they are never satisfied after a few days of such weather they 
begin to wish for a gale again to change the scene.^ 

A few days later, on April 19th, he wrote: 

Descried a sail to windward and lay by for him to come up. It 
proved to be the British Ship Mercury from Liverpool bound to 
Demarara 36 days out. Being anxious to hear what was doing in the 
United States, I sent my Boat on board of him. He gave me several 
papers, a barrel of Potatoes and 3 dozen of Porter and insisted on my 
taking 1 dozen of fowles, as he was sure [we] must stand in need of 
them after being so long at sea, but I could not put brass enough on to 
take them. After sending him on board a few pieces of Nankins, I 
filled away, it being all I had that I could give him in return.^ 

In 1849, Eben Bacon made his first voyage to China as 
supercargo. Under date of May 28th of that year Captain 
Bacon wrote a letter which is characteristic of the father and 
shows the kind of son he wanted: 

My dear Son: 

You being about to leave your family and friends for a foreign coun- 
try for the first time, I think a father's advice, who has had much ex- 
perience with the world, will not be of any injury to you and I hope 
will be of some service and trust it will be, for I have no other object 
in giving it than for your future welfare and happiness. I have now 
got to be an old man and almost the sole object I have in view is the 
welfare of my children, and to see them grow up and become indus- 
trious, virtuous, and respectable members of society is the greatest 
happiness that I can expect to receive in this world. You can never 
know the anxiety a parent feels for his children while you are only a 
son, and I thank God I have full confidence in them now and trust 
I may never be disappointed. You are now entering upon a new 
mode of life, and it is very necessary that you should live peaceably 
with all that you have to associate with; treat everyone you have 
to deal with as you would wish to be treated yourself and you will 
almost to a certainty have them respect and treat you as a gentleman. 
Always have an opinion of your own and maintain it in a gentlemanly 
manner, until you are fully convinced that you are wrong, and when 
you are once convinced, do not be ashamed to acknowledge it. 

^Daniel C. Bacon (MS. Life), pp. 59, 60, 185-186. 
nbid.y p. 186. 




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At the age of two 





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A GOODLY INHERITANCE 13 

The second son, William B. Bacon, was sent to Exeter, where 
he boarded with Doctor Perry. The letter which the Captain 
wrote in behalf of Robert Bacon's father is lost. The reply 
to it is full of interest: 

_ „ „ T- Exeter, January oth, iS''ij. 

D. C. Bacon, Esq. ' •' / ^ ' J/ 

Dear Sir: 

I have yours of the 5th in regard to taking your son to board. — 
Under all the circumstances I hardly know what to say to you. 

It has not been our intention to take any into our family, thinking 
that we were comjortably supplied with our own. We however took 
one at the beginning of the last term for a companion for my son. 
It is a very great injury to boys, and I may say ruin to almost every 
one, who comes to the Academy young, to have a room by themselves 
otherwise than a place to go aside for studying their lessons. The first 
consequence is a companion to pass away an hour, the next is the visit 
must be returned. This will be quickly followed by something to help 
entertain each other, and then idle habits if nothing worse are at once 
acquired. This is what I will not consent to, and consequently few 
boys after they have been boarding here for a term or two would be 
willing to submit to our regulations. We have no objection to their 
having company but on the contrary encourage it, but at proper times 
and then in our family, where we try to make everything agreeable to 
them. And if they visit it must be on similar conditions, but never be 
out evenings, idling away their time. 

Such is the general outline of my ideas but at the same time I desire 
to remember the indiscretions of children and govern myself accord- 
ingly. Now if your son thought he could be happy in this way of 
living, and in fact be one of the family, and not, strictly speaking a 
boarder^ I don't know but we should consent to taking him, and also on 
this condition when he is dissatisfied he has nothing to do but to take 
himself off, and if we see fit for any reasons we shall without hesitation 
inform you that it may be done on our part. You will excuse my de- 
tailed answer, believing that I could not do justice to myself, and also 
to you in the present instance without it. . . . 

Yours very respectfully, 

Wm. Perry.^ 

^What Master William B. Bacon, aged twelve, thought of being away from home is 
contained in a letter from Exeter, of October i8, 1835, addressed to his mother, some 
two years prior to being quartered on Doctor Perry: 

"When is Father coming to see me. It is almost a month since I came away from 
home and Father has not come to see me. I hope he will come pretty soon, as I shall 
be homesick when he goes away and I want to have it over as quick as possible. I have 
received a considerable many letters but not so many as Edward Reed." 



14 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

That Robert Bacon's own views were like those of the Cap- 
tain is evident from various letters which he, the grandson, 
wrote many years later to his son, Robert Low Bacon. The 
first of a series of three was written in January, 1895: 

My dearest Robin, 

I have not yet written a letter to you, have I ? Although I have had 
such nice ones from you. I am very busy down town all day and when 
I have any time to spare, I write to Mother and she has told you how 
much I miss you all and think of you all the time, and how pleased 
I am when I hear that you are doing better with your lessons and are 
really trying to help Mother and do what she wants you to cheerfully 
and with a smile on your face, and that you are manly and gentle 
and unselfish. These are the things, my dear Httle Boy, which make 
people love you, and which make you happy, and life worth living — 
and I am very glad to hear that you are trying hard. 

Remember all these things, little man, be "Valliant and True" . . . 

The second was written in the summer of the same year: 

Mv DEAREST ROBIN, 

Mother and I have been wondering ever since you left how you were 
getting on and what you were doing. 

We thought of you arriving at Camp and unpacking your blankets 
and making your bed for the night, and we hoped all the time that our 
little boy was thinking of us and his home sometimes and that he was 
very happy and manly and brave like the little Chevalier Bayard when 
he first left his Mother and went away from home out into the world. ^ 

You remember, too, little Sir Christalan about whom Mother read 
to you. His motto, his watchword was: — "Valliant and True." Let 
that be yours, my little son^ and always stop to think, when things go 
wrong, what it means. 

I shall send your new camp clothes as soon as possible. . . . 

The third, completing the series, is on the departure of the 
first-born for Groton: 

Thursday, Sep. 9 
R. M. S. Lucania. 
My dearest Robin, 

We expect to make the coast of Ireland to-night, and to leave the 
mails at Queenstown before morning, so I am writing you a line in the 

'A year earlier Mr. Bacon had ended a letter to his first-born "Remember always to 
be my manly little Chevalier Bayard." Men of this kind were Mr. Bacon's models. 



A GOODLY INHERITANCE 15 

hopes that it will be in time to greet you at school, when you arrive. 
I have thought about you a great deal, my boy, and of the important 
step in life, which you are now taking, leaving home and the watchful 
care of your dear Mother; and I cannot help saying again to you from 
many thousand miles away, what I have tried so often to impress upon 
you, to be a 7nan, with pluck enough to always do your duty no matter 
how hard it may seem, and to overcome the obstacles that you are sure 
to meet. 

Every thing depends upon the way in which you begin your school 
life. You will be alone, and must judge for yourself. Be gentle & kind 
to Masters and boys, not impatient, when things go wrong, and above 
all — curb that sometimes unruly temper, my son, and if, by chance, it 
does cause you to do a foolish, unkind thing, go at once and apologize. 
Don't forget this — and your lessons! 

Remember that more depends upon your work and your willingness 
to do it cheerfully than any thing else, & keep this always in your 
mind when the sums in arithmetic seem hard & the Latin sentences 
apparently make no sense. 

Well, little son, I must leave you. I have the greatest confidence 
in you. Dont^ don't let me be disappointed. 

Ever your loving 

Father. 



There are three traits of Captain Bacon which appear in a 
more or less degree in his descendants. The first is a love of 
the sea, not merely as a calling but as a sportsman loves the 
water; the second is the love of the horse, not so much for racing 
as for pleasure in riding; the third, a reserve which bordered on 
taciturnity without, however, suggesting secretiveness. Each 
characteristic may be illustrated by an incident. 

After Captain Bacon had ceased to follow the sea in person, 
he settled down as shipowner and merchant trading with China 
and India. A number of old skippers turned land-lubbers, 
living in Boston or its neighbourhood, had come to the opinion 
that "a yachting race" between ships would tend to improve 
models of small craft. Captain Bacon seems to have been the 
leading spirit in the movement. He was chosen president of 
the association formed for the purpose, and his "very sharp 
ship called the Gamecock'' of 1,315 tons register seems to have 
caused the challenge which appeared in the Spirit of the Times^ 
under date of August 14, 1852: 



i6 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

The ship-builders of Great Britain to race a ship, with cargo on 
board from a port in England to a port in China and back, one ship to 
be entered by each party and to be named within a week of the start. 
The ships to be modelled, commanded and officered entirely by 
citizens of the United States and Great Britain respectively; to be 
entitled to rank A i either at the American offices or Lloyd's. The 
stakes to be £10,000 a side, satisfactorily secured by both parties, and 
to be paid without regard to accident or any exception. The whole 
amount to be forfeited by either party not appearing. Judges to be 
mutually chosen; reasonable time to be given, after notice of ac- 
ceptance, to build the ships if required, and also for discharging and 
loading cargo in China. 

The challenged party may name the size of the ships, not under 
800 nor over 1200 American registered tons; the weight and measure- 
ment which shall be carried each way, the allowance for short weight 
or oversize. Reference may be made to Messrs. Baring Brothers & 
Co., for further particulars. 

Daniel C. Bacon.^ 

The race did not take place at the time, but later in the races 
between British and American yachts in the nineties, Captain 
Bacon's grandson was on hand as a member of the crews of 
various victorious American vessels. His vacations were from 
early boyhood spent on the water, and he had become an 
expert yachtsman before reaching manhood. He rowed on the 
Harvard crew, as did each of his three sons. 

Miss Julia Bacon thus describes the second of the family 
traits and illustrates it by an incident which was fortunately 
more galling to the amour propre of Captain Bacon than it was 
painful to his person : 

Grandfather always had wild, tearing horses, and he and his sons all 
being fond of driving themselves, drove daily to town, each in his own 
trap. My father one day was jogging quietly along towards home, 

^Daniel C. Bacon (MS. Life), pp. 133-134. 

"Two famous Boston firms of Cape Cod origin were Howes and Crowell, who owned 
the Qimax, Ringleader, and Robin Hood, and D. C. and W. S. Bacon, who owned the 
Game-Cock, Hoogly, and Orienia/. Daniel C. Bacon was a link between the Federalist 
and the clipper periods, having been mate under William Sturgis in the old Northwest 
fur trade. In 1852 he was elected president of the American Navigation Club, an 
association of Boston shipowners and merchants, which offered to back an American 
against a British clipper for a race from England to China and back, £10,000 a side. 
Although the stakes were subsequently doubled, no acceptance was received." (Samuel 
Eliot Morison, The Maritime History oj Massachusetts, 1783-1860 (1921), pp. 348-349.) 



A GOODLY INHERITANCE 17 

when he was overtaken by Grandfather driving one of these tearing 
beasts with both arms outstretched. He dashed by father, looking 
round as he passed and calling out, "Is your horse tired, Mr. Bacon?" 
Just then his wheel went inside of a post, caught fast and away 
went the horse with the shafts, leaving Grandfather sitting in the road 
under the chaise top, which had shut down.^ 

The grandson drove for pleasure, rode and played polo not 
only for exercise, but also to be a companion to his boys in their 
outdoor sports. He had many and beautiful horses in a large 
and well-appointed stable at Westbury. But he disposed of 
them during the war, that he might contribute the more to the 
cause. 

The third trait Miss Bacon states and illustrates in this way: 

As an example of the reticence of the whole family, there is a story 
that Grandfather and two of his sons met on the boat for New York, 
none of them having mentioned to the others that he was going.^ 

Daniel Bacon, Mr. Bacon's uncle, and William B. Bacon, his 
father, were doubtless the two sons who unexpectedly accom- 
panied the Captain on this occasion. Each is the hero of an 
episode of his own. 

The story is told of a visit which Daniel Bacon paid to his 
son at Harvard. They had not seen one another for some 
months, and the father took a long trip to Cambridge for the 
sole purpose of visiting his son. On arriving, he greeted him 
casually and sat in silence for a long time. Finally he rose, 
with a "Well, Edward, there's nothing more to be said," and 
made off. Fathers in New as well as in Old England have 
many a trait in commofi. 

William B. Bacon had a habit of informing his family on the 
day of his departure for Europe that he only had time to say 
good-bye and catch the steamer, and Mrs. Bacon recalls an 
illuminating incident of her early married life, when Mr. 
Bacon's father was living with them. It was early spring, and 
she had been spending hours over the packing cases, putting 
away furs and winter blankets. At the bottom of the case 
was a fur coat belonging to her father-in-law. While she was 

Waniel C. Bacon (MS. Life), pp. 199-200. 
mid., 198. 



1 8 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

busy he entered the room, watched her, and asked what she was 
doing, but vouchsafed no further comment. A few hours later 
he remarked, " By the way, where is my fur coat ? I am saiHng 
for Europe to-morrow at nine." With an aside to her hus- 
band, "I'm glad I married you young," Mrs. Bacon set about 
unpacking the fur coat. 

Robert Bacon could indeed keep his own counsel, and no 
word escaped him which should not have been said. But he 
was of an expansive nature, delighting in the society of friends, 
chatting and listening by turns as became a host or guest 
whose pleasure was to add to the pleasure and happiness of 
others. The influence of the mother may have been stronger 
in this respect than that of the Bacons. 

In this account of Mr. Bacon's ancestry, the Mayflower has 
not figured. The head of the family had come to New England 
at an early date, but in an unknown vessel. The Bacons had 
married into good families on the Cape; but hitherto the blood 
of the descendants of passengers on that famous ship was not 
theirs. Captain Bacon cured this oversight and he did it in 
such a way as to leave nothing to be desired. Miss Julia 
Bacon thus recounts the episode: 

Captain Bacon was married [in 1818] soon after returning from this 
voyage [in The Vancouver] to Desire Taylor Gorham, daughter of 
Edward Gorham and granddaughter of those fighting Gorhams who 
took part in all the battles which the Colonists had waged from King 
Philip's War down to 1812. 

They were descended from a de Gorran de la Taniere in Brittany 
who came over to England with William the Conqueror. 

The Pilgrims John Tilley and John Rowland, who came to Ply- 
mouth in the Mayflower, were also ancestors of Mrs. Bacon, John 
Rowland's daughter having married a Gorham.^ 

Mrs. Bacon died in 1843, ^^^ Captain Bacon in 1856, of 
enlargement of the heart. It was said by his friends that this 
was impossible as "his heart could not be any larger than it 
always had been." 

William Benjamin Bacon, Mr. Bacon's father, was the second 
son of the Captain, who sent the first and third sons to sea and 



^Daniel C. Bacon (MS. Life), p. 109. 



A GOODLY INHERITANCE 19 

the second and fourth to college. He was fitted for college 
at Phillips Exeter, then and now a famous institution. He 
entered Harvard College in 1837, and graduated in the Class of 
1 841, at the age of eighteen. One of his most distinguished 
classmates was Thomas Wentworth Higginson, preacher, a 
colonel in the Civil War, and writer of grace, dignity, and 
charm. He kept in touch with but few of his classmates, prob- 
ably due to the "reserve" characteristic of the family. Be 
that as it may, when half a century later thirteen survivors of 
the Class of 1841 came together to celebrate that happy event 
and to rejoice in their longevity, Mr. William B. Bacon recog- 
nized none of them. 

Upon graduation he went as supercargo to China and became 
a member with his elder brother, Daniel G., of the firm of 
Daniel G. Bacon and Company. Later he became the agent 
in Boston for the well-known banking firm of Baring Brothers, 
and still later he acted as trustee of various estates. He lived 
in the country, Jamaica Plain, and had his office in Boston. 

The first wife of William B. Bacon was a Miss Gassett, of 
Boston, who died within the first two years of her marriage. 
Later he married Miss Emily Crosby Low, a sister of his 
brother Eben's wife. She was Robert Bacon's mother, and a 
noted beauty. Her younger sister was also beautiful. After 
their mother's death they dressed in mourning and, skating on 
Jamaica Pond, they were known as the "Black Swans." The 
eyes of both were violet, with long black lashes. The distin- 
guished artist, William Morris Hunt, painted Mr. Bacon's 
mother but could not catch or give an adequate idea of her 
complexion. To illustrate what he saw but lost, he poured 
a glass of water over the picture, saying, "when wet it looks 
like her, when it dries, she goes." She died in 1871, when her 
son Robert was in his eleventh year. She had been taken from 
place to place for her health, and when at home the lad had 
been kept out of the way, so that she might not be disturbed 
by the least noise. When she died the boy was not allowed to 
see her. But he yearned for the mother, and he crept into the 
room where she lay, beautiful in death, that he might see her. 
From her he seems to have inherited his physical beauty; from 
her his love of music, for she was notable as a musician; from 
her the appreciation of the arts and love of literature; from her, 



20 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

if these things are inheritable, his grace of manner and personal 
charm. 

In two letters to her elder son fitting for Harvard at St. 
Mark's School, in Southboro, Massachusetts, the mother speaks 
of Robert, then a mere lad at her side. They follow without 
comment, the first shortly, the second only a month, before her 
untimely death: 



Dear Will, 

You have been such a good boy to write that I must try and write to 
you. I was so glad to have Mr. Ludlam visit you and bring me such 
good accounts of you. He and Bob may possibly make you a call on 
Tuesday next. I am delighted to hear you got on well with your 
studies. Do be ambitious and make the most of this good free time 
for studying. There will never again be so good a chance. When 
you are older other things will take your time, so " make hay while the 
sun shines." You are old enough now to think about it for yourself 
and to take a real interest in improving yourself — at least I hope so — 
for I did at your age. I hope you have got rid of your tiresome cold. 
Do take care of yourself. 

We are having very cold weather and sleighing and skating which 
latter Bob makes the most of. I must stop now. Write to me soon 
again and remember above all the French and the music. 

Mama. 



May 17th, Tuesday. 
Dear Willie, 

Thanks for all your nice letters. Don't think I forget you because 
I don't write. Eleanor is away on a journey with Aunt Mary Bacon. 
Bob has been sick but is well again. 

The trees are all coming out and the garden looks lovely, and I 
suppose the country at Southboro is still more so. If you could only 
see a little Spitz puppy of Mrs. Rice's — just like a little wooly toy dog. 
The most lovely and cunning thing that ever was seen. It came 
Sunday in a basket and passed the afternoon with me. Bob and I 
are quite wild about it. I know you would love it so. I hope it won't 
grow much before you come home. I wish I could see your theatricals. 
Papa wants to know about the trains and whether he and Bob could 
stay all night. You must write at once and let us know. . . . The 
Fish boys have had their plays again and Bob took the part of Nicho- 
las Nickleby. Papa says he did it very well. . . , 



A GOODLY INHERITANCE 21 

The family evidently tried to keep Master William B. Bacon, 
Jr., from being homesick. This is Robert Bacon's contribution 
to the cause, confirming and supplementing the mother's letter: 

Boston, May 23^'', 1870. 

Dear Willie, 

I am going to write you a letter to answer the one you wrote me the 
other day. 

I tumbled down to-day and hurt my arm very much so that I have 
to ware it in a sling. 

Mama is very much oblidged to you for those violets you sent her. 

Mr. ludlam left Boston on the iS'^^ of May to sail in the scotia for 
europe so that I can not give him your message. 

We have got a little Spitz dog like Mrs. rice's that Mama told you 
about in her letter. 

Is thire a place for us to sleep if we come to see the theatricols. 

from your aff brother, 

R. Bacon. 



PART II 

EARLY LIFE 

" The child is father to the man' 



CHAPTER II 

Harvard College Days 

Robert Bacon, the second son of this second marriage, was 
born at Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, on July 5, i860. If he 
had been consulted, it would have been a day earlier. The 
ideals of the Fourth of July, 1776, were his ideals, and he lived 
as if the Fourth of July were his day. On the one hundred 
forty-first anniversary of that day he stood uncovered with 
General Pershing and officers of the American Expeditionary 
Forces before the tomb of Lafayette, whose chivalrous cooper- 
ating, entailing that of his country, caused the ideals of the 
Declaration of Independence to prevail through a happy union 
of American and French arms on the battlefields of the New 
and the Old World. 

While the lad was still of tender age, the father moved to 
63 Beacon Street, Boston, probably on account of the mother's 
health. 

The grandfather, Captain Bacon, had sent his boys alter- 
nately to sea and to Harvard. William B. Bacon, the father, 
was the second son and, appreciating the advantages of a col- 
lege training, he established a different precedent which has 
hardened into a rule, that every Bacon goes to college. Robert 
Bacon was accordingly sent to Hopkinson's School, then a 
famous nursery for the college. He entered Harvard when he 
was just turned sixteen, and graduated in June, 1880, on the 
verge of his twentieth birthday. He was the youngest man of 
a class which included a future President of the United States, 
Theodore Roosevelt, who, in the opinion of many people, bids 
fair to become, with Washington and Lincoln, the third in the 
trinity of illustrious presidents. 

His chum at the Hopkinson School, his roommate in Har- 
vard College, and his warm friend through life was Dr. Henry 
Jackson, a distinguished physician of Boston and Fellow of the 
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He knew Mr. Bacon 

25 



26 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

most intimately in his early years and is perhaps the best 
quahfied to speak of his earlier days as an undergraduate, and 
the impression which he made on his classmates. Doctor 
Jackson writes: 

He entered Harvard College in the fall of 1876 and at once won the 
affection and regard of all who had the advantage of his acquaintance. 
He was singularly blessed by nature by a superb physique to which 
was added a manly beauty; he may well be chosen as a type of the 
perfection of manhood at its best, seldom equalled and surely never 
excelled. None who knew him in his early life could gainsay this 
rather extravagant opinion of Bacon as a man of almost perfect 
physique. He was more blest by a spirit of kindness, gentleness, 
devotion to his friends and a high ideal of life from which he never 
deviated. He made many and warm friends in all walks of life; he 
could not make an enemy. In disposition he was jovial, friendly, 
very fond of a lark or any social pleasure, yet behind all was a deep 
sense of his responsibility to himself and others, an unswerving devo- 
tion to what was to his mind the really important issue of the moment, 
whether that issue was a baseball game, a college examination, the 
welfare of Harvard College or the safety and honor of the United 
States. 

He was much interested in all athletic sports, rather from a real 
love of all outdoor activities than from a wish to excel in any one 
branch. His superb physique placed him in a position to excel in any 
sport that he was interested in. He was rusher on the Freshman foot- 
ball eleven (or rather fifteen as it was at that time), first base and cap- 
tain of the Freshman baseball team, a member of the University foot- 
ball team, and one year its captain, winner in heavyweight sparring, 
one hundred yard dash and quarter mile run, and rowed number seven 
on the University crew. He was president of the Glee Club, and took 
a prominent part in all the theatrical performances of the various 
college clubs of which he was a member. In spite of all the social and 
athletic interests of his college life he stood well in his classes, and was 
graduated well up in the upper third of his class, having had no low 
marks during his whole college career. 

He was in all respects the most popular man in the class, respected 
by all, beloved by many; success in athletics necessarily brings to a 
college man popularity of a certain kind; his popularity was deeper, 
more lasting, dependent not upon his success as an athlete, but upon 
the deep respect and devotion due to a man of fine character who was 
modest, kindly to all, generous, and possessed of a sunny, jovial dis- 
position, ready to enter into all the various joys and amusements of a 



HARVARD COLLEGE DAYS 27 

normal college man. He was Chief Marshal on Class Day, and in 
1905, when the Chief Marshal of the Alumni Association for Com- 
mencement was to be chosen, his name was the only one thought of or 
considered.^ 

Of the many incidents of college days there are a few which 
are individual and distinctive. Three may serve as a sample 
of others that might be selected. The first is a challenge to a 
game of baseball from the Cambridge High School Nine of 
which Howard Elliott, later president of the Northern Pacific 
Railway and more recently president of the New York, New 
Haven, and Hartford Railway Company, was captain, to the 
Harvard Freshman Nine, of which Robert Bacon, then aged 
sixteen, was captain. This letter, preserved among Mr. 
Bacon's papers, is in Mr. Elliott's handwriting, with a plentiful 
supply of blots and abbreviations more becoming business 
communications than literary performances. 

This important document — for such it must have seemed to 
the two principals — is literally as follows: 

Cambridge, June 18, 1877. 
Mr. Bacon, 

The Cambridge High School Nine hereby challenges the Freshman 
Nine of Harvard College to a game of ball to be played Wed. June 20th 
or Sat. June 23rd (Wed. being preferable) on Holmes' Field. 

As in a game played previously the ball was furnished by the 
C. H. S. I suppose it will be provided in this game by the Freshmen. 
We are certain that our regular umpire would give entire satisfac- 
tion to the Freshmen and we would like to engage him unless the 
Freshmen object. 

Game to be called as early as may be convenient for you. 

Howard Elliott, 

Appian Way. 
Cambridge 
A speedy reply is requested. 

The second incident is that of the quarter-mile run, which 
Mr. Bacon won. He was not an aspirant for this honour, but 
the expert in that line had no competition, and apparently he 

^Harvard College, Class of i8So, Report IX, 1920 (Privately Printed for the Class), 
pp. 14-15. 



28 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

did not want to perform alone. Therefore he spoke to William 
Hooper, one of his classmates and friends, who suggested that 
Robert Bacon should run against him. The prospective victim 
consented to run if Hooper would act as his trainer and mana- 
ger. This was agreed to and for several days Bacon trained 
and practised. But he soon tired of the task, slipped off to 
bed instead of training, as he was young and growing and 
required eleven hours of sleep. The fateful day came. Mr. 
Bacon turned up, however. The runners started and Mr. 
Bacon dashed forward with his head in the air, took, and kept 
the lead. Near the goal his competitor somehow tripped and 
fell and Mr. Bacon, little suspecting what had happened, 
crossed the line a victor, to the great disgust of the other party, 
and to the amusement of the bystanders who knew the circum- 
stances of the case. Had he known that his classmate had 
fallen by the wayside, he would have turned back even though 
he lost. This was the case later on, for the Harvard crew, on 
which he rowed, did turn back when the Yale stroke broke his 
oar shortly after the start. The Harvard boat lost. In all 
kinds of sport and in the larger game of life, Mr. Bacon wanted 
to win, but he preferred to lose if he could not win honourably. 
The third incident is connected with Theodore Roosevelt. 
Mr. Bacon was Mr. Roosevelt's faithful friend and follower 
from the beginning to the end of his political career. He ac- 
cepted office at his hands, and stood by him in the trying days 
of 191 2 when Mr. Roosevelt sought renomination within the 
Republican Party. With him he left the Republican fold when 
the Convention of that year nominated President Taft and 
voted with the new Progressive Party, of which Mr. Roosevelt 
became the first and only candidate for President. On his part, 
Mr. Roosevelt numbered Mr. Bacon among a few of his 
"chief friends," whom he described in his undergraduate letters: 

Bob Bacon is the handsomest man in the Class and is as pleasant 
as he is handsome. 

In this incident Mr. Bacon doubly deserved the epithet 
"hajidsome." Mr. Roosevelt was very near-sighted, but he 
was fond of boxing and had the ambition in college to shine in 
the prize-ring. He looked upon Mr. Bacon as the athlete of 




Robert Bacox, Harvard Undergraduate 




Robert Bacok — 1880 



HARVARD COLLEGE DAYS 29 

the class and constantly urged him to put on the gloves. This 
Mr. Baccn did now and then, when his chief preoccupation was 
not to hit too hard lest he break "T. R.'s" glasses, which he 
was obliged to wear even on such occasions. However, the 
bouts with Mr. Bacon gave Mr. Roosevelt pleasure, for he 
repeatedly said in great glee that he would have "landed" if 
his arms had only been longer and Bacon's not so long. 

Many statements of Mr. Bacon's preeminence as an athlete 
come from Harvard and therefore from sources which may 
seem overfriendly. Mr. Walter Camp, the admitted authority 
on football in this country, and as loyal a son of Yale as Mr. 
Bacon was of Harvard, will not be suspected of partiality in 
his treatment of a rival. This is what Mr. Camp says: 

In the spring of 1877, a tall crinkly haired blond giant, handsome 
as an Adonis, captained the Harvard Freshman baseball team. Four 
years later, thickened up, and grown more stalwart through work on 
the gridiron and the river, this same handsome giant stood on the field 
in a crimson jersey as captain of the Harvard football team. Robert 
Bacon was one of Harvard's great athletes, and was not only respected 
by his opponents for his physical stength and agility but admired and 
held in deep and sincere affection by them all for his love of sport and 
fair play. And he carried them all through life. It seems a pity 
that so many of the long obituary notices of him fail to mention his 
football career, for the game owed much to him. At the time when it 
stood in jeopardy some years after his graduation, he organized a 
committee of most representative college men to investigate thor- 
oughly the charges that it was injuring the youth of the land physi- 
cally, and after a year spent in thoroughly going over the history of 
every man who had played upon the Harvard, Yale, and Princeton 
teams, since the introduction of Intercollegiate Rugby football into 
this country in the fall of 1876, this committee furnished the public 
such a convincing report of the falsity of the accusation that football 
was not only cleared but justifiably advanced to a high position in the 
public mind. . . . 

We shall never see his like again. 



CHAPTER III 
The Race Around the World 

Mr. Bacon's first as well as his last recorded impressions of 
the world are preserved in two series of letters separated by the 
space of a lifetime, one series written for the eyes of an indul- 
gent father and the other a devoted wife, without a thought of 
a larger public. The first series reveals the soul of the boy with 
the college behind and the world before him. They show him 
as he began life, his equipment for the struggle, the things that 
interested him, the things that made an impression on him. 
They give a picture of the outer as well as the inner man — if 
man he can be called, for he was but twenty. They display 
the intellectual capital upon which he built his subsequent 
career. They help us to appreciate the last series of letters and 
to understand the man who lies between. 

Mr. Bacon's father had travelled much and far, and he 
thought that what was good for the father was good for the son. 
A century ago, and in a lesser degree to-day, the young English- 
man made the grand tour of Europe. The young American 
encircles the world. Therefore, Mr. Bacon and his college 
mate and life-long friend, Richard Trimble, made le tour du 
monde^ as Mr. Bacon calls it more than once in his letters in 
the last months of 1 880. The letters tell the story with scarcely 
a connecting word: 

[Undated.] 
59 East 25th St. [New York] 
My dear Father, 

I went with Dick & his father this morning to get his letter of credit 
and a passport which his father thought best for him to have. His 
letter is for £600 credit with Brown, Shipley & Co., London. 

Mr. Bacon's allowance was probably about the same. In a 
letter of April 2, 1881, the expenses from Hongkong to London 
are given as £375. He drew two drafts on his father in London 

30 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 31 

for £75 and warned that he would probably draw "some more" 
to get home, as "the tour du monde has left us destitute." 

Palace Hotel, 
San Francisco, Oct. 24th, 1880. 
My dear Father, 

After leaving you at Laramie [Wyoming] I experienced for the first 
time the feehng of leaving home. 

We passed a very pleasant night, but did not make up much lost 
time, and consequendy were too late at Ogden [Utah] to catch the 
train for Salt Lake. 

After passing the night in a rather musty httle room we found out 
that, if we were to carry out our proposed plan, we could have but 5 
hours in Salt Lake, but resolved to try it nevertheless. This was in- 
deed a lovely country after the chills of Laramie. We passed through 
the most fertile country, peach orchards and acres of all kinds of 
vegetables, the Wasatch Mts. rising like a great whale's back close 
on our left, and the lake stretching for miles on our right, the dark blue 
IVIts. beyond. When we got to Salt Lake, which by the way is not on 
the lake as I had supposed, but 15 miles from it, we chartered a team 
with a very intelligent English ex-Mormon for a driver and proceeded 
to see all we could. 

It is in a valley stretching for miles into the Mts. where the mines 
are, and through which flows the Jordan river. We saw everything; 
tabernacle, temple, several of the wives and 47 children of old Brigham 
[Young], a real live apostle and latter day saint, and had the whole 
business explained. Returned to Ogden that night and arrived at 
San Francisco about two o'clock on Friday. It took us several hours 
to get clean. . . . 

Yesterday we were driven out through the Park to the Cliff House 
and enjoyed it immensely. We are just about to start for the " Yose- 
mite" and I must stop in order to catch the train. I will write again 
when we come back. 

San Francisco, Oct. 31st 
Sunday. 
My dear Father, 

The last letter which I wrote you I had to cut very short, as I was 
just starting for the Yosemite. We left here on Monday afternoon 
at 4 o'clock in the sleeper for Madera, which is the nearest railway 
station to the valley. There were in the car a lady and gentleman 
from Springfield, a lady and gentleman from the mines, formerly of 
Connecticut, having "come over" in the Mayflower^ and two Eng- 



32 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

llshmen. These were to be our constant companions for four days, 
so we were quite interested in them. Turning in at about 9 we waked 
at 5:30 the next morning to find ourselves on a side track at Madera, 
from whence we started, after breakfast, in a six horse coach with our 
new friends. 

The first stage we rattled over at a good pace, 12 miles in less than 
an hour and a half, the road being quite level along the river bottom of 
the Fresno. Here there is something quite new for me: a large V- 
shaped flume 54 miles long in which large quantities of lumber is 
daily floated down from the saw-mills above at the rate of 9 miles per 
hour. Well, after this the pace slackened so that, after changing 
horses 5 times, we did not arrive at "Clark's" — a Hostelry in the 
Mts., until 6:30, having travelled more than 12 hours through beautiful 
mountains, the forests gradually becoming more dense and the trees 
of more variety, and larger. After paying five dollars for our lodging 
and breakfast, all the charges are becoming equally extortionate, we 
started in another stage for the "big trees." We drove for miles 
through a forest of splendid trees, pines of all kinds, cedars, firs, oaks, 
and etc., and finally came to a grove of the " sequoia gigantea. " There 
are a great many more than I had any idea of and they are really fine 
great fellows, some being over 30 feet in diameter and one of which we 
drove through, coach and all. The dust of this expedition is something 
frightful. We were so covered with it from head to foot that you' 
could not have recognized us, and one of our English friends, weight 
about 18 stone, became so disgusted with the dirt and jolting that he 
absolutely refused to go any farther and determined to go back with-' 
out seeing the valley. We were inclined to do the same, and had it 
not been that we had got so far, I think we should have backed out; 
such was our disgust at the dirt and extortionate prices. However 
we plucked up and started for the valley, and it was indeed a lovely 
drive. We had seats with the driver, and escaped the dust to a great 
extent. We gradually ascended to a great height, and finally from a 
place called "inspiration point" had a magnificent view of the whole 
valley, a lovely broad plain covered with evergreen and deciduous 
trees of all colors surrounded, or rather walled in by perpendicular 
crags of any where from 2000 to 6000 ft. in height. It is too grand. 
I will not attempt a description. 

Well, we did not arrive until after dark and were glad to turn in. 
Next morning we started off again at 6 to see " Mirror Lake," in which 
one can see all the Mts. Came back to breakfast and started im- 
mediately after on horse-back to ascend the side walls, see all the falls 
and views of importance and join the stage in the afternoon, which 
carried our baggage and was to take us back to Clark's. By the 
time we had ridden 20 or 30 miles at a rattling pace, I, for one, was 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 22 

ready to dismount. The party consisted of 4, we having left our 
" Yanky " friends, who had nearly talked us to death, and having been 
joined by a young German who proved to be a first rate fellow. 

After another day's ride in stage, having travelled in this way 200 
miles in all, we again reached our sleeper which was waiting for us at 
Madera. Arriving here yesterday at 2, we consumed the usual 3 or 
4 hours necessary for cleaning processes and called on Capt. O. [liverl 
only to find that the steamer, having arrived 3 days late, will not leave 
until Thursday, and here we are wasting our precious time and money. 
We have lots of friends here though, several invitations to dinner and 
prospects of a journey to "see the Geysers," so we are not likely to 
grow stale. There you have me — "all right up to the present time." 

I feel quite forlorn every time the mail comes for I never get a letter 
and Dick always gets two or three — a circumstance which you might 
mention to some of my friends, if I have any. I am quite well and 
happy, although I am worried a bit sometimes by the thought of hav- 
ing nothing to do. I did not feel that I had really left home until I 
left you at Laramie. Good-bye. It is needless to tell you how wel- 
come are all letters from home. 

Pacific Ocean 

_ Sunday, Nov. 21st, '80. 

My dear Father, 

Here we are in the middle of the Pacific. This is the 3rd Sunday 
that we have had on board and all three have been perfect days, the 
only ones since leaving. We have been having pretty rough weather 
lately, the end of some recent gale which must have been bad, judging 
from the sea it has raised. I have never seen waves half so high. We 
have had head winds every day but one since we started and the 
result is that we have averaged only 210 miles a day and probably 
will not arrive until the 27th or 28th. 

I have been rolled and knocked about so that I am lame all over, and 
it is a great relief to have at last a pleasant day, in which to sit down 
quietly and write. 

You must have received my last letter telling of our Yosemite trip 
and delay of 2 days in San Francisco. Election day passed oflF very 
quietly in the city, and, having dined with General Barnes the night 
before, we went with him to the "Republican League Club" where we 
heard all the returns from the different states^ and met several of the 
most prominent business men, Capt. E. [Idridge], Gov. Lowe, Davis 
who was running for Congress and many others. 

^The presidential election referred to was that of November, 1880, which resulted in 
the choice of James A. Garfield, of Ohio, over his Democratic opponent, Major General 
Winfield Scott Hancock, of Pennsylvania. 



34 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

On Wednesday Bob Hastings drove us out to the fort to see Major 
Gushing. We dined with Hastings and in the evening went to see the 
"Chinese quarter." This is the most disgusting sight that I have 
ever seen. Thousands of men huddled together in space insufficient 
for a hundred. Why, you have no idea of the squalor and filth in 
which they all live, or rather exist, in dark garrets, dirty, damp holes 
under the street and anywhere else, all for the sake of the hundredth 
part of the "mighty dollar" which they may carry back to the home 
of celestials. 

What I have seen puts a new aspect on the "Chinese question." I 
wish some of the Eastern philanthropists who hold up their hands in 
holy horror at the stories from the Pacific slope might see the subjects 
which their missionaries pretend to convert. 

We have found the Gcelic to be a very staunch and sea-worthy boat, 
though with not much cabin accommodation, having only a deck 
house which was built on " afterwards." She used to carry freight. 

Capt. Kedley has proved to be an old friend, inasmuch as he was 
with poor Frank^ when he died and held him in his arms. He used to 
know him in Japan, and we have had several talks about him. 

There are 4 young Englishmen on board, two of whom are first rate 
fellows. I see a great deal of themi. The other passengers are Ger- 
mans and missionaries going on their "fool's errand" to Canton. We 
have had cricket on the days when the sea has not washed the decks. 
And this with reading, whist, singing and getting exercise under diffi- 
culties makes the time go quickly enough — not to mention eating and 
sleeping. 

We crossed the i8oth meridian on Tuesday and omitted Wednesday 
altogether. Did not see the buoy on the line although the Capt. said 
there was one. The last half of our voyage is likely to be as rough 
as the I St. Even as I write it is coming on to blow from the south- 
west. 

I have been reading several books on Japan and am getting very 
keen about it. I think we shall go overland from Yokohama to 
Kioto. Either by walking or "jinrlkshas," see Osaka and Kobi and 
take the steamer there. I will write some more in Yokohama, if the 
mall gives me time. Until then good-bye. 

"International Hotel," Yokohama 

Sunday, Dec. 5th. 

Our voyage lengthened out another week, and we have had four 
Sundays on board. The last week was a slight Improvement on the 

'Mr. Frank Low, his mother's brother and favourite member of the family. He was 
only thirty years of age at the time of his death. 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 3s 

rest of the voyage, but still we had constant head winds and high 
seas. I waited up on the night of Sunday the 27th and was rewarded 
by a glimpse of "la Luna" light at "8 bells." The land looks very 
welcome and beautiful in the gray of the morning, as we steam up 
the harbor through hundreds of "sampans" sculling about in every 
direction with marvellous speed. Our engines have brought us 4,760 
miles without stopping. . . . The weather is simply perfect, warm 
and balmy in the day time and cool at night. The country is lovely 
and I have never been more favorably impressed in my life. It is 
pleasure merely to exist in this climate. 

We have seen everything in Yokohama, including a football match 
between the " Shore " and officers from H. M. S. Comus. We have been 
to Tokio once and will go again to-morrow and see all the temples and 
estates of the now mythical Daimios. The " things" that we have al- 
ready seen in exhibitions and bazaars are too beautiful for description. 

Last Thursday we started with Knight and Mackinnon, who have 
proved to be good friends, for Enoshima, to see the temples and 
country in general. 

We were six jinrikshas and 12 men besides ourselves and guide, one 
jinricky going to carry baggage and food. Was very much interested 
in all employments of the happy, smiling inhabitants, all of which, 
cotton manufacture, agriculture and all trades, we could see in all 
stages of progress. We passed through a large town which has been 
entirely destroyed by fire 10 days before and was now half rebuilt, the 
people seeming to like it, as it gave them employment. 

At Enoshima, see temples, have a deHcious bath in the sea and a 
rather cold night on the floor. 

The next day started back by another road to see " Dai-Butsu" most 
famous old bronze image in Japan and 45 ft. high, and "kamakura." 
I don't say much about these temples, etc. I can't begin to do them 
justice and to say that they are magnificent and grand old relics of 
Buddhism is entirely too much for my little pen. Will have to do till 
I see you. 

As I run through a village dragging a jinriksha the inhabitants go 
into convulsions and run behind shouting " Hy ! Hy ! " You can imag- 
ine me taking my exercise in that way. I had 4I miles across country 
on Friday. To-day I have been oflF on a Japanese pony for 25 miles, 
stopping at a teahouse for clams and tea, which is wet and warm, and 
that's all that can be said of it. We are going to give the next two 
days to Tokio and sail on Wednesday for Kobe, having given up the 
overland trip, as taking too much time. Shall leave for Shanghai 
on the 17th expecting to arrive on the 23rd. Expect to be in Calcutta 
by the ist of February and receive lots of letters from home, which you 
might mention to some of my friends and acquaintances. 



1,6 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

I am enjoying myself Immensely and all my expectations of Japan 
have been more than realized; and they were pretty high I can tell you, 
I have met lots of friends of poor Frank and they have been very kind 
to me. . . . 

Yokohama, Dec. loth. 
My dear Father, 

Just a line to say that we leave to-morrow for Kobe where we shall 
stay till the i8th, arriving in Shanghai on the 23rd. I received your 
letter to-day and it was indeed welcome, as the ist from home since 
starting. It was rather diminutive. ... I must go to bed now 
as I am going to Tokio at 7 a.m. to see a temple that I missed the other 
day. Dick is not going as he has something to do here. 



Hiroshima Maru. 
Saturday, Dec. i8th, 1880. 
My dear Girls, 

Don't be frightened by the heading of this epistle. It is only the 
name of a steamer plying between Yokohama and Shanghai, the same 
one in which Wink came up to Japan a year ago. 

We have been 3 weeks in Japan now, and think it the best place we 
have ever seen. The climate is simply perfect, to-day nearly Christ- 
mas, when you are all freezing at home — being clear and warm as an 
October day. Two weeks we spent in Yokohama, Tokio, and the 
surrounding country, which is lovely. We met two very nice English- 
men on the steamer, and one day in Yokohama we all made up a party 
of 4 and, taking an interpreter, started off for Enoshima, a little prom- 
ontory, or rather island, about 20 miles from Yokohama. You should 
have seen our little cavalcade passing through the villages, stared 
at in wonder by scores of diminutive children, all shaved and tufted 
like those on your mantelpiece, and all carrying still smaller babes on 
their backs. They look like bundles of old rags with two heads. We 
had jinrikshas, which translated means "pull-man car," each pro- 
pelled by two little half-naked Japs, one in the shafts and the other 
pushing behind, both grunting in concert. It is a very peculiar sensa- 
tion at first, to be drawn along by a boy 4 feet high in a sort of little 
"shay," but one soon gets used to it and goes spinning along over the 
"Tokaido," the great imperial highway, at the rate of 8 or 10 miles an 
hour. 

I was In a very happy frame of mind, just coming from a long 
voyage of 24 days to a "land which is fairer than day," the land, in 
fact, of the rising sun, where I eat 2 dozen oranges a day, and I carried 
on a running conversation with every one within hail, much to the 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 37 

amusement of every one else, for it is only necessary to look at 
Japanese to set them.off into gales of laughter. In short, it ^vas a very 
smiling journey. We had a very funny time that night at a teahouse 
or hotel, sitting about shivering in our stocking feet, the only warmth 
being in a small box of charcoal. It is quite cold at night at this 
season, and as the walls are made of paper, it was somewhat breezy 
sleeping on the floor, all four of us in one room. Next day we went 
home by another road, seeing the temples of Kamakura, an ancient 
capital of Japan, and the great bronze image of Dai Butz, and stop- 
ping for "Tiffin" and a sea bath at a delightful little place, of which I 
will show you a picture next spring. 

Jenkins of "Fearon, Low & Co." was very kind and I went twice to 
ride with him in the country on a little black pony about twice as big 
as Barny. I found, too, several kindred spirits who invited me to 
play football and run in "Hare and Hounds," and these I enjoyed 
very much, especially the latter in which I fell down several pre- 
cipices, cut myself on sharp sticks and tore my clothes. But, what I 
have enjoyed most are the curio shops. The beautiful things are 
beyond description, bronzes, cloisonne, porcelain, carved ivory and silk 
and satsuma good enough to eat. The little old dogs with several 
curly tails and crabs, turtles, and strange beasts are what please me. 
I spend hours rummaging in second-hand pawnshops for which 
Trimble laughs at me a great deal; but I haven't money enough for 
many really good things so I make it up on the odd little things that 
cost a few cents. 

Last Saturday we left Yokohama and came down to Kobe by 
steamer, not having time to go overland as we had intended. Oh I 
forgot to tell you about the tennis garden in Yok. where all the ladies 
play. The grounds are lovely, all terraced and surrounded by orange 
trees and pretty hedges, and the ladies play better than any I have 
ever seen, even than you. One of them, Mrs. Defanger, played 
especially well, and, when afterwards I saw her at a concert and dance, 
I found that she played on the piano better than on the tennis court, 
and tried hard to be presented, but alas! in vain. 

Kobe is even better than Yokohama, in fact about everything I 
see is better than the last, but I will tell you about it to-morrow as it 
is too dark to go on now. 

Sunday 

To-day is the best of days and we have been coming through the in- 
land sea, which is magnificent with all its green islands and queer fish- 
ing boats with many-coloured sails. But to return to Kobe. We went 
immediately to Fearon, Low's and were invited to tiffin by Mr. 
Cunningham, who has a quaint old Japanese house just at the foot 



38 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

of the Mts. which overlook Kobe. The house used to belong to an 
old Daimio or lord, and has been moved down by Mr. C. 20 miles 
from Osaca, the Venice of Japan. It would just suit the "artist." 
You may walk about an hour in it continually stumbling upon unex- 
pected rooms of queer shapes and with odd little nooks and crannies. 
The walls are all of paper, silk and carved wood, made into sliding 
panels, all painted with unknown beasts and landscapes of fairyland. 
The friezes are all carved out in order to let the air pass through, and 
the ceilings all very low though of different heights. Mrs. C. being 
the only lady 1 have seen since leaving home rather frightened me, 
but I managed to get along and she invited us to dinner to meet 
Messrs. Groome and Green, two old friends of poor Frank, whom 
every one misses very much out here. 

We spent two days in Kioto, Japan's ancient capital, and made 
several trips, the best of which was coming down the rapids of a 
mountain torrent, 20 miles through a beautiful gorge, deep and green. 
It reminded " Dante " of the inferno. 

We spent two more days in curio shops which even surpassed those 
of Tokio and Yokohama and have come away with empty pockets, 
etc. 

You can only think of the beauties of the inland sea by imagining a 
passage full of islands, something like the trip from Rockland to Mt. 
Desert, with Mts. four times as high and fantastic, vegetation eight 
times more luxuriant and the whole thing ten times more beautiful. 
Even this will convey no idea as it is 300 miles long. 

In an hour we shall be in Nagasaki, the last port of Japan, and on 
Christmas day will be in Shanghai with Uncle and Aunt Low. I 
will now spare you and stop to get ready for shore. 

If, on receipt of this, you write immediately to Alexandria there 
may be some hope for you; if not, look out for me when I get home. I 
want to know everything. 

Tuesday, Dec. 28 

Shanghai. 
Dear Father, 

Christmas is past and I am about to begin a new year here far 
away in the Antipodes. My last letter was from Kioto, I think, in the 
centre of Japan. On our return to Kobe we met many new friends 
and were invited out to tiffin and dinner with Messrs. Green and 
Cunningham. 

Dr. Harris, an old friend of Frank's, was very kind, and took us 
about to all the curio shops, which we enjoyed much more than any 
we had seen before. On Friday night, after dinner at Mr. C's where 
we met Mr. Groome, we went on board the good ship, Hiroshima 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 39 

MarUy bound for Shanghai, via Nagasaki and the "Inland Sea." Next 
morning we found ourselves passing through the most beautiful sea in 
the world. For 300 miles we skimmed right along the shore winding 
among lovely, bold islands, and passing near enough to throw a biscuit 
ashore. There were some first-rate fellows on board and the time 
passed very quickly. Cyrus W. Field^ was a fellow passenger en route 
for India. Tell Will that Capt. Haswell remembered him very well 
and asked for him. The harbor of Nagasaki is the most perfect one I 
have ever seen — just like Quisset multiplied ten times. Thirteen 
Russian men of war were lying there and the settlement full of drunken 
sailors — the most disorderly, with all its severity and cruelty, of any 
Navy in the world. 

After examining manufact. of porcelain and tortoise shell, which is 
all there is to see, we started on Monday for Shanghai where we 
arrived on Wednesday night, after a smooth voyage, being just in 
time to go over bar at the top of high water and get up to the wharf 
at dark. Since then we have been enjoying one of the pleasantest 
Christmas vacations that I have had for a long time. It has truly 
been a vacation for there is really nothing to see here in the way of 
sights, that keeps one on the continual jump that we have become 
accustomed to in Japan. 

It was after 8 when we went on shore, and, when I inquired where 
Uncle N.2 was to be found, I was told that every one was at the 
theatre. So, sending for luggage and donning a dress suit, we pro- 
ceeded to the hall of the Muses, where we found every one in full 
dress, witnessing some private theatricals. We might just as well 
have been in New York. Uncle N. appeared before we were up next 
morning with mail which had come in the same steamer with us, and 
insisted on our moving bag and baggage to his house on the "Babbling 
Well" road. I have at last been repaid for waiting so long, receiving 
7 letters and hearing all the news. I sat up in bed reading my letters 
until I was nearly frozen and late for lunch. Christmas time in 
Shanghai is a very festival, no work being done and every one enjoying 
himself to the best of his ability, and it is quite a possible place, I as- 
sure you. It is and has been so unusually cold that "the hounds" 
have not been out, nor has there been a "paper hunt," but we have 
"been out" nearly ever day riding across country in parties of 8 or 
12. This is so entirely new to me that it does as well as a hunt, and is 
not so dangerous. 

Uncle Ned has been very unfortunate and has nine ponies all 



^The proprietor of the first Atlantic Cable between the United States, Newfoundland 
and England, laid in 1858, and successfully operated in 1866 and thereafter. 

^Mr. Edward Low. 



40 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

screwed up so as to be useless. Why there are any ponies with any 
legs left, I don't know, for it is the roughest country you ever saw, 
with its deep frozen "rut and furrow." It is wonderful how these 
little nags carry weight and jump. I have been riding one who 
takes me over ditches and creeks with perfect ease. But, then, you 
know, I am a light weight, tipping the scale at 196. This and playing 
"racket" has given me exercise and enabled me to eat the large din- 
ners and tiffins of Shanghai at Christmas time. Uncle Ned and Aunt 
Eleanor are just as happy and comfortable as anything you can 
imagine. It would take books to tell you all about them and every- 
thing we have been doing. We have been here nearly a week now, 
and have decided to go on Thursday in the "Oxus" "messagerie 
maritime" to Hongkong where we shall probably take another 
steamer on to Calcutta, etc. Cannot tell definitely as we don't know 
how the connections will work. We have been staying here very 
quietly with Uncle N. and Aunt E. really enjoying the comforts of 
home life and a rest after the hurry of the last 3 months. W'e should be 
very glad to stay here for weeks and weeks, but it is not what we have 
come for and so we must be off in a jiffy, just as we arrive, and con- 
tinue our lightning investigations of the world — a big place to see in a 
moment. The universal cry that we meet is "How foolish of you to 
hurry back so! You will never be able to come again and what 
possible difference in your life can 3 or 4 months make in arriving 
home, where you will have to wait all summer before you can begin 
work?" 

Uncle Ned goes so far as to say that he will excite and urge us to 
mutiny, take the consequences, and be thanked for it afterward, if he 
succeeds — that we will always regret having missed hundreds of 
beautiful things for lack of 2 or 3 days to see. To all this we answer 
that having agreed upon the ist of May, we are going to get home 
if it takes a leg, and we don't see anything. . . . 

Be sure and take good care of yourself and rely on me to do the 
same. For that is all that I am hurrying home for. . . . 

That was the son's Christmas letter to the father, and this is 
the father's letter to the "boy" (appropriately written in small 
letters) although it is signed "brother." 

Boston, Dec. 30, 1880. 
My dear Boy, 

I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year every time. 
We have just got through the first of these two occasions and the 
presents for children and all hands have nearly driven me wild. I send 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 41 

you my love for your present and accept yours for mine with great 
pleasure. 

I enclose a letter for you from W. Hooper, Esq. It is hardly time 
yet to pitch upon an occupation for you, but the lame at^d lazy are al- 
ways provided for and you won't be left out in the cold. Hoop, 
seems to be feeUng "pretty well I thank you" which I suppose is 
partly due to the existence of the honeymoon which will soon begin 
to wane unless his is an exception to the general rule, in which case 
the rule would be proved to be correct. "Exceptio probat regulam." 
That is the result and about the only one, of a classic education. . . . 

Poor Miss Annie C's plans have been upset, fortunately for her, I 
think. Mamma P. arrived from Europe, would not go to see Annie 
and kicked up such a mess that young P. went to Europe and as his 
letters did not prove to be of that confiding and desperately-in-love 
nature that Miss Annie expected, she kicked over the traces, notified 
the wandering bridegroom that the thing was up and started for 
Florida to pass the winter, where I hope she found warmer weather 
than we have got here; this thermometer standing at about zero as I 
write. The moral of the above is that it is not well for two young 
people to make up their minds on the most important question of 
life, without looking the market over thoroughly and without prayer- 
ful considerations. . . . 

I hope this will find you "in condition" and I recommend you to 
keep yourself so till you get home for I am coming down in weight 
and could get round you pretty lively. With my love to Dick and 
best wishes for the health and pleasure of both of you. 

I continue your aflf brother, 

W. B. B. 



On board White Cloud 
January loth, 1881. 
My dear Father, 

My last small budget must have reached you from "Shanghai." 
We were rather sorry not to go to Peking, but made up for it in Shang- 
hai by our vacation from sightseeing of all kinds. The cold weather 
prevented our enjoying the "hounds" but we had many good rides 
and I was very glad of the chance of making the acquaintance of 
my new aunt and almost equally new uncle. They are as much in 
love with each other as a couple of 20, and are as comfortably situated 
as any one could wish. We took one look into the native city but 
were soon satisfied and came out. , The smells of the drainage, etc., 
were frightful. 

We left Shanghai on Friday the 31st and had two unpleasant and 



42 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

stormy days but on Sunday it came out warm and bright and we 
enjoyed the rest of the voyage till Monday morn very much. The 
French mail "paquebot", Oxus, on which we came is the finest ship I 
have ever seen and the service of the best. The climate of Hongkong 
is perfectly lovely. We spent 3 days in there very pleasantly playing 
cricket, rowing, and dining out. 

On Thursday we started for Canton, where we stayed with Deacon 
and Co. on the Sharmeen and were very comfortable. The city we 
"did" in one day. I am very glad to have seen it as a specimen of a 
Chinese city with its old temples and pagodas and beautiful silk shops, 
but I don't care about going again. On Saturday we came down the 
river in a diminutive steamboat to Macao which is the prettiest place 
I have seen for a long time. The mixture of fine old Spanish and 
Portuguese buildings, beautiful ruined cathedrals, tropical gardens 
of poets of the 15th century, and forts bristling with soldiers on an 
island surrounded by Chinese gunboats and smuggling junks, was 
very incongruous, and made me forget where I was. There were 
several fellows whom we knew from Hongkong staying at the hotel, 
and they lost all their money at fan-tan, the gambling game which 
forms the principal revenue of the Portuguese Governor of Macao. 

I am now on my way back to Hongkong in a good steamboat, whose 
hatches are all guarded by armed men to prevent any mutiny of the 
Chinese passengers below. We will have to wait in Hongkong till 
Thursday or Friday when we take steamer direct for Calcutta, due 
there on or about the ist of February, which is our schedule time for 
arriving in India. 

Tuesday. 

. . . You see, we have subdivided our time rather differently 
from what you and I did at home. It was perfectly impossible to 
leave Japan sooner than we did — almost heartrending to leave it 
so soon. As we were unable to get to Peking, we decided to cut 
short our stay in Shanghai, pleasant though it might be. 

It was all very delightful and luxurious, but in the interests of 
general education and seeing strange countries it went for nothing, 
as we saw nothing that we had not seen before and did nothing but 
the things of a gay and Eastern society life. So we gave our time to 
Canton and Macao, and I am very glad we did, as you have already 
seen. By taking a direct steamer to Calcutta we have saved I75 and 
ten days here, losing only 4 days in India. Voila. 

I was much pained to think you received no letter from San Fran- 
cisco. I wrote you quite a long letter and have since prided myself 
upon writing every mail. I was delighted to get your letter, however. 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 43 

You have no idea what an excitement follows the arrival of mail. We 
immediately retire and spend the evening reading our letters to each 
other — I mean the firm of "Trimble, Bacon, et Cie." 

This week is liable to be quiet and pleasant. We are getting into 
condition for the hot weather of the equator. Yesterday and to-day 
we have been out rowing and to-morrow I play football. My weight 
is 13.3 with rowing clothes. I think I win the bet. . . . 



Friday, January 14th. 

The week has passed as I predicted and nothing of importance has 
happened. Have rowed and played football. . . . We have 
taken our passages on the Awatoon Aplar^ an opium steamer belonging 
to a private line. She leaves to-morrow at three o'clock and is due, 
as I have said, the ist prox. 

We went on board the other day and found her very large and 
comfortable, larger than the Cunard steamers. 

I shall look out for that letter at Singapore, but hardly expect to 
find it. Letters from home have been more frequent than I expected 
and I feel as if I knew what was going on. . . . 

I find that "Canton mats" cost ^9.50 each, so don't think I shall pur- 
chase a great gross. This letter will probably reach you about the 
thawing and slush time of early spring. Be careful and try not to 
be laid up with the usual cold. You may think of me sweltering in 
the "Red Sea". . . . We have made up our minds ^i^o«/ what to do 
in India. A trip to Benares, Allahabad, Lucknow, Delhi, Agra, 
Cawnpore, and Simla, which is at the base of the Himalayas, then 
back to Allahabad and thence to Bombay will give us about three 
weeks in India. This is the present programme you may follow on 
the map. We have had thoughts of going from Alexandria to 
Athens, thence to Constantinople, Varna, and up the Danube to 
Vienna, but that is all in embryo as yet. 

I did not say much about Canton, for I suppose it is about the same 
as when you saw it, 3 or 4 years ago, wasn't it? It smells as bad as 
ever and I was quite glad to get out of it at the end of a day of jolting 
about in a chair, with "Ah Cum" jabbering pidgeon English. . . . 

Well, I must say good-bye! for the present. Do take care of your- 
self, at least till I get home to take care of you. I'm sure you need two 
assistants. . . . 



44 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Hongkong Club 
Jan. nth, 1881. 
My dear Wink/ 

I was delighted to get your letter yesterday, and feasted on it for a 
long time. Your precaution about Stuart has come too late, although 
it was unnecessary. I met him the first day and he immediately put 
me up at the racquet court, where we played together, and did all 
manner of things for me. I dined with him, and we became very good 
friends. When we went away, he gave me lots of letters to people on 
my route, one of whom I dine with to-morrow, by the way, and a 
"Kumsha" of silk handkerchiefs. I met nearly all your friends and 
dined and tiffined with them. Weld, Bunnan [Burman?], Groome, and 
the rest. In fact, about the only thing I go on out here is my resem- 
blance to you and it is quite sufficient to "go alone" on. We were 
rather unlucky in missing a meet of the hounds, but had plenty of rut 
and furrow across country. Nearly every day we went out with 6 
or 8 fellows. Uncle Ned leading the way, the ground being too hard to 
ride at full speed to hounds. Old Baldy was rather unlucky and got 
one of the ponies you speak of. One day we were riding quite hard 
when someone happened to miss him. The whole field stopped and 
after some time we found him turning round and round in the middle 
of a lot of graves. Our united efforts finally persuaded the beast to 
proceed, but as he continually stopped to dance and refused every 
other jump, B. had to leave us and go home. Next day we tried 
again. We were about 8 miles from home when I happened to look 
round and saw a white pony with his four legs planted on the edge of 
a ditch, and Baldy . . . shooting over his head. Well, we 
chased that pony about 7 miles, darting through orchards and tearing 
our clothes, breaking down Chinese villages, fording muddy rivers 
and all covered with dirt. It was rather good fun for us, but death 
on Dick, who followed on foot in boots so tight that he has been 
troubled with blisters ever since. The pony, when last seen, was 
galloping off with no bridle and half a saddle, waving his tail in 
triumph and defiance. B. came home in a ricksha. 

Japan was as lovely as usual, and I met all your friends, Groome, 
Green, Tileston, Jenkins, etc. They are still hospitable. Haswell 
who was with you at " Miyanoshita " is here. We have dined with 
him. I just missed Jim Fearon, Miss H., Mrs. S., and Mrs. Kerr who 
had all gone home. Too bad, wasn't it? Imagine China just as you 
saw it with a lovely cool climate and plenty of rowing, cricket, foot- 
ball, yachting, etc., and you have it as I see it. For further particulars 
I refer you to W. B. B. and stop for the night, or this miserable quill 

^This letter was addressed to William B. Bacon, Jr., Mr. Bacon's brother. 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 45 

pen will drive both you and me crazy. "Boy!" who is about 80 can 
get no other. 

Friday, January 14th. 

I must finish rather abruptly, Wink, for nothing has turned up and 
I am pressed. 

We are off for India to-morrow. . . . 

If there are any more weddings coming off for which I shall need 
presents, I wish you would let me know in time to get them in Europe. 
I have already bought several. It is pretty hard not to buy all the 
beautiful things you see, isn't it? Still I don't think I shall stop at a 
handful or so of diamonds and rubies in India's coral strand. . . . 

Awatoon Aplar 
Jan. 22nd, 1881. 
My dear Father, 

As we are just leaving Singapore ... I think it a good time 
to begin a letter. 

After a fine run down the China Sea with a fair monsoon, we 
arrived in Singapore yesterday morning (Friday). We have some 
very pleasant people on board ... an indigo planter of India, 
and his wife. The officers too are all good fellows, so we have plenty 
to do all the time, with reading and writing up the log. This steamer 
belongs to one of two private lines which ply between Calcutta and 
Hongkong and have a complete monopoly of the opium trade. 

The Suez^ the steamer of the other line, always starts at the same 
hour and minute that the Aplar dots^ and consequently there is quite 
a brisk competition and race from port to port. She is now about 
\ mile ahead of us, having had the advantage of position. 

The weather in Singapore has been cooler than ever before. Yes- 
terday was colder than the oldest inhabitant remembers to have seen 
it. Still, I think I must have lost a pound or two, for the water ran 
out of me all day. 

Mr. Cuthbertson of Bonstead received me very cordially, immedi- 
ately gave us his carriage to drive in the Botanical Garden, and invited 
us to dinner. We were fortunate in coming on Friday, for on that 
day the regimental band plays in the garden, and all the "beauty and 
fashion" turn out to hear it. The gardens are really beautiful, all 
blooming with flowers of every description, and tropical plants. 
They are kept up by the government now and are the prettiest thing 
of the kind that I have seen. 

There are a great many ladies here considering the size of the place, 
and good teams, which made the place look very much like Newport. 



46 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Our dinner at the Cuthbertsons was very pleasant and homelike, 
"in one sense of the word," for they are hearty Scotch people and 
were having a kind of family party. At first I was afraid we were 
"de trops," but soon found out that they didn't mind us, and pro- 
ceeded to enjoy it accordingly. We have met a great many Scotch 
people since we have come to "the East" and like each one better 
than the last. There are more Scotch than English here. 

I learned a little as to the character of the "East India trade," of 
which I knew absolutely nothing before, by being taken through the 
"go downs" of Bonstead and Co., and shown the tapioca, tin, spices 
of all kinds, etc., all ready for shipping, and the cotton goods, blank- 
ets, etc., which they were trying to persuade the Chinamen to buy. 
The China "New Year" is close at hand, and "John" is not very 
eager to purchase, everybody being in preparation for the grand 
festivities. 

We left at 2 o'clock and are on our way to Penang, where we expect 
to arrive on Monday morning. 

Thursday, Jan. 26th. 

We are now speeding along up the Bay of Bengal, two days out 
from Penang, at the rate of 11^ knots, the n. e. monsoon being fair 
enough for everything to draw. 

Arrived in Penang on Monday morning at daylight, and, after 
watching for sometime the Malay coolies at work on the cargo, and 
the crowd of "sampans" that come off to land the Chinese passengers, 
went on shore and proceeded to Bonstead and Company. Mr. 
Finlayson invited us to tiffin in the office, but, as it was not yet time, 
we took a "garry " and went off to see the waterfall, which is about 
the only thing of interest in the way of "sights." Very much struck 
by the hundreds of varieties of flowers and the thousands of pahr.s, 
both "cocy" and betel-nut, which line the road. Here we have the 
true black, naked nigger and the full force of the tropical sun. I 
nearly melted during the short walk from the garry to the waterfall. 
The large solar hats that we wore are sufficient protection against the 
sun and prevent any possibility of sun stroke. Penang, like Hong- 
kong, is right at the foot of a mountain, which the people call their 
"Sanitarium," and where they retreat when the weather gets too 
much for them. 

They all tiffin in their offices here because it saves time and does not 
necessitate a long ride home. We met several men at Bonstead's and 
enjoyed the tiffin. Mr. Finlayson invited us to come and play tennis 
in the p. m. not saying anything about ladies. We went, and found a 
regular lawn party, ten or twelve ladies and gentlemen. Played 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 47 

tennis, had a first-rate time, and stayed to dinner, after which we went 
to the "race lottery," where Penang was assembled to bet on the 
races which began the next day. Saw several of the rich Chinamen 
and natives who form the monied class of the colony — among them 
the "Mahah-Rajah of Jahore" a fine-looking old fellow with turban 
and sarong of brilliant colours. The Suez, our constant companion, 
is going to wait for the races of the ist day and will not sail until 7 
o'clock, expecting to catch us before we get to Calcutta. Our captain, 
McTavish, does not approve, so we are off at 12 o'clock on Tuesday. 

It is generally very calm here at this season, but we are fortunate in 
having a fresh n. e. breeze, and are stealing quite a march on the Suez. 
We expect to be in Calcutta on Sunday, or rather in the river, for it 
will take some time to go up the "Hoogly." 

I think I told you, from Hongkong, what our proposed plan of 
action was. We have not changed. We intend to be in India about 
three weeks, giving most of the time to the cities of the north, and 
leaving Bombay about the 20th or 25th. 

So much for me — I am having a first-rate time, as you can well see, 
and I think I am getting some experience as to the things of this world, 
which may be of use, whatever I do. 

Time flies as I have never seen it before, and here we are more than 
halfway in our journey, when we have but just started. Yet it seems 
about four years since we left, and I find it hard to realize that it is 
only three months, and that everything has been going on exactly as 
if we had never gone away. It seems to me as if great and important 
changes must have taken place. One does not realize his own in- 
significance until he has seen how perfectly well, perhaps even better, 
the world would go on without him. 

What are you going to have for me to do, when I get back? I am 
anxious to "settle down," my only regret being that now I shall never 
learn French and German which has always been my greatest wish 
(in that line). 

I wish you would make up your mind, as you said you might, to 
come over to England in April and go home with me. You know how 
much good it always does you and it won't take but a few weeks. 
Please think seriously of it. I shall be in London the first week in 
April, "Deo Volente." You will have to start right away on receipt 
of this. . . . 

January, 30th, Sunday. 

We are now about halfway up the Hoogly. What a splendid great 
river the Ganges is, but how full of shoals and mud! It must have 
changed since you were here. We now go from the outside light to 



48 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

Calcutta in lo hours. It must have taken you weeks to do it. The 
scenery is not very pretty, is it? Reminds me of Shanghai with all 
its flatness. ... 

Yesterday morn, about 9 we sighted a steamer astern. She turned 
out to be the Suez, who had caught us, and passed us last night at 
II o'clock. I have been up since four "taking it all in." I had a 
good view too of the Southern Cross. 

Calcutta, Feb, 2nd. 

On arriving here Sunday afternoon we went to the Great Eastern 
Hotel, not knowing where to find the Whitneys. We had a first-rate 
run up the river passing 5 large steamers and 6 ships bound out and 
homeward. I have never seen so many ships before. I had no idea 
of the extent of the trade from this, the largest port in the East. How 
very pretty the banks of the river are just before arriving, botanical 
gardens, ex-kings' palaces, and fine private residences. 

We went out on the "Esplanade" and saw all the "style." Every 
one drives there in the p. m. . . . 

Monday morning we went to the Whitneys'^ and found them all, 
Fred, Frank, and Ned. They were very cordial and asked us to come 
and stay with them, which we did in the p. m. and have since been 
very comfortably ensconced at their house in the city. They have 
moved in from "Ballygunge" where they used to live. 

Yesterday we looked about the city and in the evening went out in 
a "pair-oar" with Tom Edmonds, brother of the "old man's" partner. 

I haven't time now to write all particulars, but will write again 
soon. To-morrow we think of going up to the Himalayas, or rather 
near them, to a place called Darjeeling. It will be a three days' trip, 
but we think will pay. W^hen we come back, we shall start almost 
immediately for the "North W^est" to carry out the programme 
mentioned above. The P. and O. steamer Surat sails from Bombay on 
the 24th and we think that we shall go in her. 

I enjoy staying here at the Whitneys' very much, especially as they 
let us alone to do as we please, true principle of hospitality. . . . 

"Himalayas," Feb. 5th 

A/T T- "Darjeeling." 

My dear Father, -' ° 

. . . We left Calcutta on Thursday at i o'clock in the "North- 
ern Bengal R. R." pretty comfortably housed in an English "car- 

'The particular Whitneys referred to were Edward F. Whitney, later a partner of 
J. P. Morgan & Co., Frederic Whitney, and Frank Whitney. They were uncles of 
Mr. Bacon's future son-in-law, George Whitney, likewise a member of J. P. Morgan 
&Co. 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 49 

riage." It took us all the afternoon to cross the large, flat, almost 
uninteresting plain which forms the Delta of the Ganges. Crossed 
the river at 7 o'clock and found ourselves settled for the night in a 
small carriage, our companions being a man and a boy, who insisted 
upon talking. Our bedding consisted of our rugs and a small in- 
flated paper pillow each, which we brought from Japan. 

After a very dirty and "cindery" night we found ourselves at Lilli- 
juri where we breakfasted at 6.30. A steam tramway is to take us 50 
miles to Lonada. The ascent of the mountains is a lovely ride, the 
little train rattling along and whisking around corners even more 
sharp and sudden than those of the "Grand Canyon of the Arkansas." 
However, we arrived safely at Lonada, where we tiffined and pro- 
ceeded on to DarjeeUng on ponies, there being a dearth of "Tonjons," 
the usual mode of conveyance. I was not at all sorry, for I had a 
diminutive stallion who nearly pulled my arms off and quite "lim- 
bered" me out after the long ride in the cars. Here we arrived at 
5 p. M. and a beautiful spot we find it. It is in the province of Sikkim 
which is in the very heart of the Himalayas, and surrounded by 
Bhootan on one side and Nepaul on the other, with Thibet on the 
north. You will have to get out your map. It is quite an English 
settlement, there being a military cantonment and British residence, 
and the visitors who come up from the plains for their health being 
all English. 

DarjeeUng is noted for its "Tea Gardens," which one can see dot- 
ting the hillsides all about. This morning at 6.30 we had a fine view 
of the snowy range and Mount Kunchinjunga and to-morrow we are 
oflr for an eminence from which we hope to see Mt. Everest, King of 
Mts. Let us hope that the mists will not prevent, as this will be 
our only chance. We go on to Calcutta to-morrow. Good-night. 

Monday afternoon, Calcutta. 

We decided not to attempt to see "Everest," and thus gained four 
hours in DarjeeUng on Sunday morning. The chances were much 
against seeing the mountain, and we would have caught cold, no 
doubt, waiting about on top of a mountain at 6 in the morning, after 
having walked 7 miles. It was market day and the "Bazaar" was 
filled with country folk who had come in from the surrounding moun- 
tain provinces to sell their produce and coarse wares of all kinds. 
Lepchas, Bhootanes, and Nepaulese all sat huddled together behind 
their piles, arrayed in all colours of the rainbow, making the birdseye 
view, which we had of it all from above, a very picture. They are a 
fine, hardy lot, and look like the pictures one sees of wandering 
"Bedouins" etc., from Thibet. 



50 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

We had a rather pleasant ride down the mountains, although a litde 
dirty, the cars of the "Tram" being all open, giving free sweep to all 
cinders and smoke from the engine. Arrived here at i o'clock and 
went again to the Whitneys' and made ourselves at home, as we had 

promised. . • 

Agra 

Feb. 14th, 1881. 
My dear Father, 

My last was just before I left Calcutta. Just after I had posted it, 
your letter came, and right in the nick of time, for had it been a few 
hours later, I should not have received it until I reached Bombay. 

I enjoyed your news immensely, for, although you always say you 
have none, you always tell me more than any one. I am glad to see 
that you are in such good spirits and "condition." / am a light weight 
now and will surely win the bet. I am awfully sorry about Annie C's 
troubles. She is too nice a girl to [have] two such unfortunate ex- 
periences. If I meet P. I think I shall tell him what I think of him, 
for although a man must be very careful in his selection, after it is 
once made, he must "stick" to it at all hazards. 

Still I think as you say, she will be better off eventually. He must 
be an ass. 

I am sorry, however, to hear such pessimistic views on marriage in 
general. You remember accusing me of being a pessimist. I main- 
tain that I never have held such discouraging views as those which 
you seem to hold out for the young married couple. But I'll forgive 
you, if you will meet me in London on the 5th of April at the Grand 
Hotel. 

Leaving Calcutta last Tuesday night, we arrived at Benares, the 
ancient and Holy City of the Ganges, at about 2 the next day, and 
started immediately to inspect the various temples and mosques of 
ye ancient time. They are splendid old monuments, so much better 
than any of the showy " Josshouses," all "gingerbread" work and 
decked out with tawdry tinsel. I am not going to inflict any descrip- 
tions. 

One temple is sacred to monkeys and is literally infested, nearly 
1000 of the little beasts of all sizes and ages living in and about temple 
grounds. Benares is a true picture of an oriental city of the Arabian 
Nights, narrow alleys and high overhanging houses, with dusky beau- 
ties bedizened with jewels and gaudy colors leaning from the veran- 
das and minarets. 

At early morn, thousands bathe in the holy Ganges and wash away 
all their sins from the Ghats or stone flights of steps that line the 
banks. Just behind these Ghats are palaces of ancient Moguls 
with their castles and battlements. The picture, as I saw it, at sun- 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 51 

rise from a boat on the river is indescribable. The next day we 
reached Cawnpore, the saddest memorial in. English history. The 
world knows nothing of the horrors of that triple massacre. ^ The 
Government takes good care to conceal what happened through their 
own carelessness. 

iThe massacres at Cawnpore, some forty miles from Lucknow, and the relief of that 
place are two famous incidents in the Indian mutiny of 1857. The immediate cause of 
the revolt of the Bengal native army, commonly called the "Indian mutiny," was the 
great disproportion between the numbers of British and native troops in India, which 
gave the Sepoys an exaggerated notion of their power; its immediate causes were a series 
of circumstances which promoted active discontent with British rule. 

Alike to the Hindus and Mahomedans, the fat of cows and pigs was anathema. 
The Minie rifle had been introduced into India. The greased cartridges for this weapon 
had to be bitten to be used. Rumour had it that the grease of the cartridge was from 
the fat of one or the other of these animals. "No attempt, in fact, had been made to 
exclude the fat of cows and pigs, and apparently no one had realized that a great outrage 
was thus being perpetrated on the religious feelings of both Hindu and Mahomedan 
Sepoys." The natives refused to lose "caste" as they would by using the cartridges. 
The native troops rebelled. The mutiny spread and became general in Bengal. 

In June of 1857, a handful of British troops in Cawnpore held out for three weeks 

against Nana Sahib, Rajah of Bithur, the moving figure in the mutiny. On the 27th, 

the garrison surrendered on the promise that their lives be spared and that they be 

given a safe-conduct to Allahabad. They were massacred. By an even greater act of 

treachery women and children were murdered. A few weeks later, on July 15th, some 

two hundred women and children who had been spared were massacred on the approach 

of General Havelock's relieving army, and their bodies thrown into the famous well of 

Cawnpore, where stands to-day a memorial surrounded by gardens. This, in Mr. 

Bacon's opinion " the saddest memorial in English history," is crowned by the figure 

of an angel in white marble, and on the wall of the well itself is the following inscription: 

Sacred to the perpetual Memory of a great company of 

Christian people, chiefly Women and Children, who near this 

spot were cruelly murdered by the followers of the rebel 

Nana Dhundu Pant, of Bithur, and cast, the dying with the 

dead, into the well below, on the xvth day of July, MDCCCLVII. 

The siege of Lucknow to which Mr. Bacon refers began on the last day of June of 

the same year. The soul of the defense, Brigadier-General Sir Henry Lawrence, was 

killed on July 4th. On September 25th General Havelock's relieving columns entered. 

"The garrison consisted of 1,720 fighting men, of whom 712 were native troops, 153 

civilian volunteers, and the remainder were British officers and men. This small force 

had to defend 1,280 non-combatants . . . During the 87 days of the siege the strength 

of the garrison had diminished to 982, and many of these were sick and wounded. 

Against these were arrayed six thousand trained soldiers and a vast host of undisciplined 

rabble. For nearly three months their heavy guns and musketry had poured an 

unceasing fire into the residency entrenchment from a distance of only fifty yds. During 

the whole time the British flag flew defiantly on the roof of the residency. The history 

of the world's sieges contains no more brilliant episode." [Quoted or paraphrased from 

the Encyclopedia Britannica, nth edition, articles "Indian Mutiny and Cawnpore."] 

In the second series of letters Mr. Bacon notes with satisfaction that he was serving 

on the Western front with Sir Herbert, one of the Lawrences, a son of Lord Lawrence, 

and a nephew of the famous Sir Henry Lawrence (i 806-1 857), "the noblest man that 

has lived and died ^or the good of India." 



52 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

Lucknow is not many hours from Cawnpore, and is as glorious as 
the latter is shameful. We saw all the places where a mere handful 
held out for months against 20 times their number, until relieved by 
another handful, who had cut their way through hordes of rebel Se- 

We have now come to Agra and have seen the great and renowned 
Taj-Mahal. Without exception it surpasses anything I have ever 
seen for architectural beauty and splendor. No one can form any 
idea of it until he has seen it. It stood there in the moonlight last 
night, and really I could have sat and looked at it all night. I took 
eleven hours' sleep instead. _ r • r u 

There is a fort here that would fulfil wildest fairyland fancies of the 
most imaginative youth. Built of red sandstone, with all the bat- 
teries, bastions, moats, portcullis, it is 70 feet high and i| miles circum. 
Inside are all the palaces and mosques, the great King and all his 
wives. The "pearl mosque" entirely of white marble is beautiful. 
Nearly all the halls and corridors are inlaid with precious stones and 
gold. Others are of the finest carving in sandstone and marble. "I 
dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls." A dream that I never ex- 
pected to see so fully realized. By the way, this is the "land of 
roses." All flowers grow here and the gardens are superb. One in 
Lucknow has the most beautiful "Jacqueminot," Marechal Niel, and 
Souvenirs and every other flower I ever imagined. 

I am rather hurrying this and do not give full details of the things 
I see, knowing that you will be satisfied to learn that I am "all right." 
The mail goes to-night to Bombay and, as I am going to drive out to 
an old tomb, I must stop. ... 

We go to Delhi from here, then Jeypore and down through the Raj- 
put to Bombay, where we expect to arrive on Monday the 2ist, and 
sail about the 24th in some line that is cheaper than the P. & O. By 
the way, we travel "2nd class" now and rather like it. . . . 

S. S. Galatea 
Feb. 24th, '81. 
Dear Father, 

We have finished India and are hurrying as fast as most perfect 
weather and fair breezes will let us, to Egypt, where we hope to arrive 
about the 9th prox. My last, from Agra was, I am afraid, hurried 
and uninteresting, except inasmuch as it let you know that all was 
well. Our journey through India was the most rapid thing on record, 
nearly all our nights being spent in railway carriages and all our days 
in the continual whirl of what people call "sightseeing." It was very 
pleasant, however, and interesting, everything being entirely new, and 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD ^^ 

giving me, although superficially, a pretty clear idea of India in general. 
The "Taj-Mahal" is par excellence^ the monument of the "East" 
and, I think, of the world. Everything that I have seen since has 
paled before its simple yet grand purity. The interest of Delhi was, 
to me, principally in itself, as the great capital of ancient Moguls and 
in its productions, not the less beautiful for being modern. The four 
or five days that we spent in Agra and Delhi were very pleasant, too, 
socially, for we had as companions Mr. and Mrs. Field and two Eng- 
lishmen, Crabbie and Delmage, whom we got to know very well and 
regretted leaving. With the two latter we made several excursions, 
one being a drive of 50 miles out from Agra to an old and weird castle, 
which took us all day. We took our tiffin with us and made a little 
picnic out of it. Arriving at Delhi at 5 in the morning we set out 
immediately after "Chota Hazri," which consists of eggs, tea, and 
toast at 6 a. m. to see all we could before breakfast, having only two 
days to give to Delhi. After going entirely through the palace and 
"Jamma Masjid" or Imperial Mosque, we came back to a "Turkish 
bath" before breakfast. Just a word about the palace. One hall, 
the "Diwan-i-Khas," is the most lavishly extravagant thing that one 
can imagine. It is entirely of marble and open to the air, being 
merely a roof resting upon 50 pillars. The carving which covers it is 
wonderful. The pillars are all inlaid with precious stones and 
painted with gold leaf. The ceiling was formerly covered with plates 
of gold and silver. The throne which used to stand here was in the 
form of a peacock, the feathers in whose tail were of emeralds, rubies, 
sapphires, and diamonds. It cost 50 million livres. Well, the Turk- 
ish bath was most refreshing, though peculiar. The man who manipu- 
lated me went through the most fearful antics. He danced on my 
chest, kicked, punched, and squeezed me until I felt as limp as a rag 
and quite ready to lie down. The rest of our time, as I have said, 
was passed in examining the beautiful cashmere and chaddar shawls 
and the gold jewelry and embroidery for which Delhi is noted. The 
next night we said good-bye to Crabbie and Delmage, who are to fol- 
low us on the next steamer, and started over the Rajputana R. R. 
for Jeypore, where we arrived at 10 the following morning. 

Jeypore is the most essentially Indian city there is at the present 
time, in fact, it is the only one under the direct rule of a Rajah or 
rather Maharajah, which is one step higher. After sending our cards 
to the Maharajah in due form, a guide came from his private secre- 
tary, without whose assistance and permission we could not enter the 
city walls. The Dak Bungalow, where we are staying, is just outside. 
The palace, though large and splendid enough for its proportions, is bu.t 
a tawdry-looking modern structure, all painted in gaudy colors and 
furnished with European furniture. The courtyards and corridors 



54 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

were all full of lazy looking native soldiers, who looked as if they had 
no idea of the use of the swords and shields which they carry. We 
were much disappointed to find that the day before we arrived there 
had been a great festivity and "Durbah," which translated means a 
dance of many nautch girls in the rajah's presence. We might have 
witnessed it as well as an elephant fight which had taken place the 
very morning we arrived. Just too late, as usual. The part of the 
palace which I enjoyed most was the stable in which there were 200 
splendid Arabs, just like the proud and prancing steeds of a circus. 
They are all tethered by a rope around each leg. If they were not 
trained to it, they would surely break their legs. In the afternoon 
we met the Maharajah himself, driving out in great state with his 
numerous followers, their horses all richly caparisoned with gay 
trappings. He had the good sense to drive himself a pair of fine 
"whites." My pen is too weak to attempt a description of the city. 
The broad streets and market places were literally crowded with 
people, dressed in every conceivable color, camels, elephants, and 
bullocks, for all the carriages are drawn by milk-white bullocks with 
horns of green and gold. 

The next morning we started early with two Englishmen to drive 
six miles to the rajah's "other" palace. Four natives who insisted on 
going with us completed the party and made quite a load for the mis- 
erable half-fed "quads" which took us. At the foot of a long and 
high hill we were met by elephants sent to meet us from the rajah's 
stable, upon which we mounted and were carried up to the palace which 
is on top of the hill. The motion of an elephant is anything but 
pleasant, but one gets used to it after a while. We had started so 
early that we were back in time to catch the train at 1 1 for Bombay, 
via Ajmere, Ahmedabad, and Baroda. This was on Saturday and we 
arrived in Bombay on Monday morning — a long and dirty ride 
through rather an uninteresting and sterile country. It reminded 
me of our ride in the U. P. 

We had learned that the P. & O. steamer Sural was to sail on 
Thursday, but thinking 500 rupees rather too extortionate to Suez, 
looked about us for other and cheaper. We found the good ship 
Galatea of the Anchor line, with accommodation for only seven 
passengers, but having run across the Atlantic formerly, thought she 
must be seaworthy and engaged our passage for 300 rupees. We 
find her staunch and comfortable enough and will probably arrive at 
Suez before the P. & O. As she left on Tuesday afternoon we had 
not much time for Bombay, but made the best of what we had. 

We started off immediately for letters, and I was disappointed 
at finding only about six lines from you, with the enclosed packet. 
But I hadn't been there long before your two letters came, one from 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 55 

Calcutta and the other direct. . . . You speak of the temptations 
of Paris. I do not even think we shall stop there, and if we did, I feel 
quite sure that I have several imaginary "Talismen" which would 
raise me above them. I wish I felt as sure of myself on many other 
scores as I do on that. But really I think I may get a little common 
sense one of these days. I am just beginning to feel that it may be 
something to realize that I don't know anything; and I am quite sure 
on that point. 

One reason that I do not jump at the Manchester offer any more 
eagerly is that it would take me away from Boston and you, and, if I 
am not mistaken, that same reason has influenced you in not urging it 
very strongly. . . . 

Friday, 25th. 

To return to Bombay, where I left off yesterday. Messrs. Dossab- 
hoy Merwanjie & Co. received me with open arms. First, they 
wanted to know all about my "good father" and uncle, and what they 
were doing, and what they were likely to do. Then they pointed 
out the window at an old "carryall" which you had sent them free 
in a ship 25 years ago and which was then the finest carriage in Bom- 
bay. They insisted upon doing everything for us and were much 
disappointed because we didn't go there again in the afternoon, so 
that they might "show us round." But we were quite willing to stay 
at home quietly after our long and sleepless journey, and read our 
letters. We did, however, walk out when it became cooler and found 
ourselves at the "Apollo Bunder" soon, where all the "style" con- 
gregate to hear the band play, show themselves and their fine clothes 
and partake of cooling "American drinks" as they call them here. 
Most conspicuous among the crowd are the rich "Parsees" who out- 
shine the Europeans in everything of that kind. The old gentlemen 
lean back in landaus and barouches with their tall, peculiar hats on 
and clothes of satin and silk, and look as if they owned all Bombay, 
as indeed they do to a great extent. 

Before I was out of my bath next morning, Mr. D. M. & Co. called 
and brought another letter from you which was especially welcome, 
the others having been so short. We went immediately after break- 
fast to draw some money. . . . We engaged our passages for that 
afternoon, and then went with Mr. D. M. & Co. all about town and to 
several tempting shops. I then met another Mr. D. M. & Co. who 
is the head of the house and who wanted all the news of the "good old 
gentlemen" and to be remembered kindly to them. When we went, 
they insisted upon giving us presents of fans and bottles of perfume 
and went all the way to the steamer's dock with us to see that all was 



56 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

right. We have left some "things" to be sent home by them, which 
we had purchased in India. I did not think that it would be much 
trouble to them, as they are always sending to New York. We tried 
hard, but could not find a single tiger-skin. I wanted one very much 
for a' wedding present. We have had things sent home from China 
and Japan by Messrs. F. L. & Co., all to New York, and I fancy 
you will be surprised when you see the collection. But I am quite 
sure I shan't regret them, as I expect to be supphed with "Presents" 
for the next year. . . . 

... We found on arriving at the steamer that she would not 
sail until 8 o'clock p. m. but was going to "drop down" on account 
of the tide, so we determined to go to the "races" which were to take 
place that afternoon. We were a little late but saw some very close 
heats between Arabs and "walers" from Australia. The most novel 
part of it though was the immense concourse of people, principally na- 
tives. It was the most brilliantly colored scene that I have seen. 
A living mass of all colors of the rainbow. The Parsee children 
are especially gorgeous in their satins, silks, and gold embroidery. 
There were a good many English there too, and quite a display of 
"beauty" and "swell" teams. 

We hurried away directly it was over, and arrived at the Bund just 
at dark, not knowing in the least in which direction the Galatea was 
lying. A boatman professed to know, however, and we started off. 
We had boarded two steamers and it was getting very late and dark 
when we espied a steamer's lights far out and away from the rest. 
As the chances were that it was not our ship, I took a paddle and went 
to work with a will, not blessing the boatman, I assure you. Fortune 
favored us, or we might still be paddling about in the dark. I didn't 
cool off till next day, when I found myself well under way in the 
Arabian Sea. 

The last two days have been perfect, with a cool breeze from the 
north, but to-day is rather a bad 'un, there being a light air just astern. 
The thermometer is but 88°, however, and I do not grumble, although 
I sleep on deck. . . . 

The passengers are quite uninteresting, and, having nothing else to 
do I spend the time writing, reading, and thinking. The latter does 
not amount to much as I think principally about myself, so much so 
that I am getting quite selfish. . . . 

Wednesday, Mar. 9th. 

We have had one of the slowest passages on record. The P. & O. 
steamer passed us about a week ago, as well as all the other steamers 
that left several days after us. Our engine broke down, as luck would 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 57 

have it, and we had to stop and repair, besides not being able to go 
more than 6 miles an hour ever since. We met a regular Atlantic 
gale and head sea in the middle of the Red Sea, which lasted 3 days 
and did not assist us much. I think considering the fact that we 
came on the Galatea to save time as well as money, we have succeeded 
about as well as usual, having lost 8 days altogether. We are now 
just entering the Gulf of Suez and hope to arrive to-morrow if we have 
good luck. . . . 



Cairo, March 14th 
Monday. 
Dear Father, 

It is quite late and I ought to be In bed, but I am going to begin a 
letter to you because I feel quite blue. I have just been talking with 
Morris Gray whom I have been chasing all around the world and just 
caught, and it has set me thinking. Everybody seems to have some- 
thing definite to do and they are all starting off in life at a good pace, 
while I seem to be still "scoring" and scoring badly at that. It is all 
well enough to tell me that I have plenty of time and all that, but 
that doesn't seem to satisfy me at all. , . . What is there in the 
\\ntoi business? Manufact. you say, and railroads. I don't want to 
have to go into some mill that is going to take me away from you for 
5 or 6 years more. If I am going away, why not go altogether and get 
"west" or somewhere. What can I do in a railroad? I shall never 
have brains enough to manage anything and I don't want to be a 
fireman on some engine. They say that business is now "lively" 
and that there is a boom in all stocks is plain from the newspapers. 
By the time I shall want to have anything to do with "business" 
there will surely be a revulsion and corresponding crisis. It is bound 
to come soon. Half the time I think I had better study law and let 
money grabbing alone and do without the "mighty" or rather 
"cursed" dollar. I can always earn my own living. Life is too short 
to be spent in vain search after riches. That is rather a weak and 
narrow view of it too — a lame excuse I rather think for not wanting to 
settle down and dig money enough to marry on — for that really, even 
you with your skepticisms must admit, is one of the ultimate aims 
and ends of most people. You must think that your son has taken 
leave of his senses, prattling in this senseless way, but he hasn't — he 
is only thinking aloud a little, and as usual going off at | cock and not 
putting down half what he really does think. I feel better, however, 
and think I will go to bed. 



58 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Tuesday. 

I think I will leave off last night's strain and tell you a little of what 
I've been doing. We finally got rid of that miserable Galatea, having 
lost about six days on account of her old broken engine. As I think 
I told you, the last 3 days in the Red Sea were very disagreeable and 
we had to go at half speed sometimes on account of the head sea and 
wind, which were larger and more stormy, the captain said than any 
he had seen there before. However, we finally reached Suez and went 
to the only hotel, which is not bad. I was feeling a Httle "seedy" 
not having eaten anything but "Food for Infants" for 3 or 4 days, as 
I had a little touch of sun which caused a disarrangement of the 
stomach. I am sure you will say that there could be no more suitable 
food for me than the above-mentioned. We came right on from Suez 
on the next day, there being a railway now, not a caravan and camels, 
as when you were here, "the other day." 

Finding comfortable quarters and a most delicious atmosphere and 
climate after the enervating heat of the tropics, we settled down at 
Shepheards Hotel and I have been dieting and keeping quiet for 1 or 
3 days. I am now all right and as fine as a fiddle, having passed the 
morning on a donkey's back. Frank Weld and Minot Weld, whom we 
chased all through India, and Morris Gray whom we have been chasing 
all around the world, are here, and it is quite pleasant to have some- 
one to talk it over with. Minot Weld and M. Gray have been up the 
Nile to Thebes, Abydos, the Cataracts, etc. This is quite the thing 
to do, but we have no time to linger, being already a day or two be- 
hind our regular schedule time. We leave here to-morrow, I think, 
and go down to Alexandria from whence we take steamer either to 
Constantinople direct or via Athens. The "Russian Mail" goes on 
Friday (i8th) and the khedive's Egyptian mail goes on Saturday. 
These steamers will get us to Vienna about the ist of April, whence 
we shall go straight to London, getting there in time for the Oxford- 
Cambridge boat-race and athletic sports which take place on the 7th 
and 8th. . . . That is our present plan. How many times we 
may change it, I don't know, but at any rate, we shall be at home on 
the ist May, "Deovolente." It makes me a httle anxious at times to 
hear of all those fellows who are going to spend the summer in Europe, 
. . . especially as I am so anxious to learn German or even French, 
and as, in all probability, I shall have to loaf at home all summer. 

The hotels here are full of people of all kinds, invalids who have 
spent the winter here and further up the Nile, invalids who have not 
and swarms of "Cook's Tourists," all "breaking up" now, and going 
their respective ways ... I haven't yet given up all hope of 
finding you in England, especially as you have said nothing about it in 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 59 

any of your letters. I wish I might feel sure that you will be there. 
If not, take good care of yourself in the changes of our "gentle spring" 
with all its "diphtherial mildness." 

I am rather discouraged to find, on reading this over, that about | 
the words are spelled wrong. I think I had better go back to school. 

Alexandria 

March 18, '81. 
My dear Father, 

Safely ensconced on board of one of the Russian paquebots bound 
for Constantinople, I have just time to send this line by a passenger 
who is going on shore. We came from Cairo yesterday intending to 
go by the Egyptian mail to-morrow to Athens; thence to Constan- 
tinople. On finding this morning that it would be impossible to have 
any time in Athens, we decided to go direct by the Russian mail of 
to-day. We find that our paquebot cannot sail till to-morrow, but do 
not think it worth while to go on shore again. 

She seems to be a comfortable boat, and seaworthy, and we are to 
have 15 fellow passengers. Morris Gray is with us. 

I think it probable that we shall have a rough passage, as it 
seems to be blowing quite hard from the northeast. We have left 
the tropics and fully realized it last night on arrival in Alexandria. 
The change in temperature was worthy of New England. 

I think it was rather unkind not to write either to Cairo or Alex. 
You certainly knew that I should be in Egypt at least for a few days. 
I shall not get any news now until we get to Vienna, which will be 
about April ist, D.V. I had fully made up my mind to at least one 
letter and was really very much disappointed, especially as my Bom- 
bay mail was very meagre. I wish myself " bon voyage " for you. . . . 

Constantinople 

^ March 24th, '81. 

My dear Father, 

I intended to have written a line from Smyrna, where we stopped 
on our way from Alexandria, but we had so few hours there, and were 
so busy that I did not find time. 

We have been having the spring equinox and I assure you it is very 
disagreeable and cold — just like our March weather at home. The 
Russian steamer that we came on was a great high-sided thing, and 
rolled more than any boat that I have seen — in fact, she rolled all the 
time, whether there was any sea or not. We had just left the har- 
bor when all hands were sick. I waited till after breakfast the next 
morning and then decided to pay my small tribute, too, to Neptune. 
The sail up the ^gean Sea was lovely, although it would have been 



6o ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

much improved by fair weather. The day which we spent in Smyrna 
was most interesting. 

Being, as you know, the great emporium and tradmg centre for all 
Asia Minor, it offers a mixture almost unequalled here in Constanti- 
nople. Turks, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, and Italians swarm the 
streets and bazaars where we spent the day, principally at the stores 
for Turkish and Persian rugs. 

After another night of rolling even worse than before, we passed 
inside of Tenedos having a fine view of the plains of Troy and entered 
the Dardanelles, where we stopped for 4 or 5 hours. All this time it 
has been colder than Cambridge and thick overcoats and blankets 
have stood in good stead. The Captain proved a first-rate fellow, 
speaking English well, and I have been much interested in Russia, 
especially the late assassination [of Alexander II on March 13th] 
which has been the principal topic of conversation. With the officers 
and stewards I had rather a hard time, Morris Gray and Dick gener- 
ally making me spokesman — why, I don't know, unless because I am 
less bashful about making blunders than they. The steward spoke 
French about as well as I do. You may imagine the struggles that 
took place daily. But, really, I feel pretty small, when every man 
I meet can speak 3 or 4 languages, while I cannot even write my own. 
"Leander swam the Hellespont" you know, and "Xerxes, etc. etc." — 
Well, we saw all this on our way through the straits and a beautiful 
voyage it is — a little later in the season. It rained all night, and has 
been snowing and raining all day, with a regular North-Easter, which 
has made an "extraordinary" large pair of "trankenplasts" almost 
invaluable. 

Don't smile — we have changed our plan of action. Everyone who 
seems to know anything about it tells us that the trip "up the Dan- 
ube" is most uninteresting, and that no one but an idiot would do 
it at this season of the year, unless obliged to. Believing this and 
frightened off by the ungracious reception which the weather has 
given us in Europe, we are going to leave here to-morrow in an 
Austrian Lloyd steamer for Athens. A Grecian steamer will take 
us through the Gulf of Corinth, and, connecting at Corfu, with a Florio 
steamer for Brindisi, we hope to be in Naples by the ist of April. I 
wrote to "Barings" from Alexandria to send my letters to Vienna, 
and have now written to the Anglo-Austrian Bank at Vienna to forward 
them to Rome. You will probably think it foolish to rush about 
the country in this wild fashion, but it has been our object to see as 
much as possible, it being our last chance, and, if you were here, I 
think you would prefer the chance of the lovely Mediterranean 
weather of Athens and Naples, to the certainty of snow and ice in 
Bulgaria and Austria. — A demain. 




William B. Bacon 
Father of Robert Bacon 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 6i 

Friday. 

I haven't time to-day nor do I think it would particularly interest 
you, to tell of all we have done here in Constantinople. They have 
been two busy days and I feel satisfied and almost ready to get into 
warmer climes. Our trip to-day through the Bosphorus to the Euxine 
was very satisfactory and would have been perfect with clear spring 
weather. To-day, however, it has cleared off and I think the storm 
is over. 

Our steamer, the Minerva, is large and comfortable and I expect to 
enjoy the Greek part of the archipelago as well, if not better, than the 
Turkish. 

I am getting very anxious for letters, as it is now a month since I 
have had any. I should have liked to receive a line in Egypt! But, I 
consider no news as being good news and look forward to an enlarged 
packet in Rome. ... I shall write again soon, probably more 
at length, but I think it must be tedious "wading through" 20 to 30 
pages. I have never had the opportunity of trying. ... A 
short five weeks I hope will bring me home. . . . 

Rome, April 2nd, '81. 
My dear Father, 

I have just received yours of the 9th March, and you may well 
believe it was welcome, being the ist that I have received since Feb. 
2 1 St. We have just this minute arrived from Naples, where we spent 
two days. 

I hope you have received my short letters from Alexandria and Con- 
stantinople. I meant to write again from Brindisi, but, really, I have 
been so — what shall I say? busy does not convey any idea — continu- 
ally "on the jump," that time failed in its flight. I suppose you 
were surprised, I hope not annoyed, at our seeming fickleness and 
versatility, as it were, in the way of plans. We had fully made up 
our minds to go up the Danube to Vienna, but, arriving in Constan- 
tinople in cold north-east storm — ^just down from Russia — and finding 
that our proposed trip would be very uninteresting and cold, too, for us 
poor souls from the tropics, we turned back to sunnier and more genial 
climes. . . . 

You must excuse my hurrying this letter so, but unless I do I shall 
not even see the "Forum," which is actually the only thing I shall 
have time to see of Grand Old Rome. 

Although I have not said much of Constanti. in my last, I must re- 
serve it till I see you in London. 

We left on Saturday the 25th and after a lovely sail through the 
Dardanelles and islands of the North ^gean, came to Athens the 



62 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

next morning, intending to go from thence through the Gulf of Corinth 
to Patras, Corfu, and Brindisi, but I seem to have had a good many 
"buts"— we could not make the connection and had to continue in 
the good ship Minerva, having only 8 hours in which to see probably 
the most interesting city of the Levant. It was hard to bear, merely 
for the sake of a few days, but it had to be done. Athens is simply 
teeming with interest and Greece is lovely— we skirted along the shore 
past Cape Matapan, inside all the islands of Ionic fame, Zante, Ceph- 
alonia, Ithaca and finally arrived at Corfu on Tuesday, 28th. You 
have no idea of the fertility and beauty of these "isles of Greece" 
"where burning Sappho loved and sung"— 7 delightful hours we spent 
in Corfu and then proceeded in a " Florio" steamer to Brindisi arriving 
next morning. 

By the way, Greece is bristling with soldiers and I think war is al- 
most inevitable.^ 10 hours through the olive and almond groves of "la 
Belle Italic" brought us to Naples. The aggravation of hurrying 
through these wonderful old places is better imagined than described. 
Pompeii and Vesuvius, however, succumbed to our rapid sightseeing 
propensities and here we are in Rome, having seen Turkey, Greece, 
and Italy in a week. 

We enjoyed a splendid opera in Naples and expect to do so again to- 
night. The delights of this land of music make us almost doubt 
whether we have not been eccentric in preferring the "far east" to 
such charms as the operas of Rome and Naples and the orchestras of 
Vienna and Berlin to say nothing of the "languages" which I shall 
never learn now. But I, for one, do not regret my tour du monde. 

Do not be afraid that I am overdoing myself by trying to see too 
much. We take it very easy and as Rome was not built in a day, 
think it useless to attempt to see it in a day. Our only excursion will 
be a drive to the ruins to-morrow. . . . 



London, Apr. nth, '81. 
My dear Father, 

I have been so busy ever since I arrived in London that I haven't 
had a moment. . . . We saw the race very well and were very 
kindly received by Benson, the Cambridge "coach" who invited us to 
dine with the crews after the race. Having so few days here, we are 

'The Greek Army mobilized in order to force Turkey to accord Greece an increase 
of boundary recommended by the Congress of Berlin (1878) ending the Russo-Turkish 
War, approved by a Conference of Ambassadors at Berlin (1880) and actually agreed 
to by Turkey in July, 1881. Greece received an increase of 13,395 square kilometres and 
a population of 300,000. Mr. Bacon's phrase was accurate, "almost inevitable" was 
correct at the tim«. 



THE RACE AROUND THE WORLD 6^ 

kept very busy " shopping." The tour du monde has left us des- 
titute. . . . 

London, Apr. 14th. 
Dear Father, 

I write again in case my last missed to say that we wait two days 
for the Gallia. This, I hope, will catch the Germanic at Queenstown 
and arrive 3 days ahead of me. All well and enjoying myself in spite 
of London rains and fogs which are numerous. I am so busy with my 
packing, etc. that I must stop. I leave for Liverpool at 5 p. m. to get a 
day there. 

In after years the travellers used to laugh at their "race" 
around the world, as they called it, to see Oxford and Cam- 
bridge row. But then they were athletes. Richard Trimble 
had been captain and Robert Bacon a member of the last 
Harvard crew to row against Yale. To them the Oxford- 
Cambridge race was in a real sense the "onlie begetter" of the 
sport. Had they made the tour of the world later, they would 
not have had more pleasure; they would probably have seen 
other things, but hardly more. As it was, they saw with the 
eyes of twenty. And after all one is twenty but once. 



CHAPTER IV 

Marriage 

On October io, 1883, Mr. Bacon married Miss Martha 
Waldron Cowdin. She, Hke him, was of New England an- 
cestry although she was then a resident of New York City, 
where he himself was soon to settle and to become a leading 
citizen. Her father, Elliot C. Cowdin, was born in Vermont 
in 1 819. Mr. Cowdin's grandfather, Thomas Cowdin of 
Massachusetts, was a captain in the Army of the Revolution, 
and for many years thereafter a member of one branch or the 
other of the legislature of Massachusetts. Entering business 
in Boston, where he mastered the intricacies of silks and their 
manufacture, Mr. Elliot Cowdin estabhshed a firm of his own 
in New York with a branch in Paris, and lived alternately in 
one place or the other as circumstances dictated or suggested. 
In Paris he was the leading member of the American colony, 
and friend and confidant to a succession of American ministers, 
particularly to Elihu B. Washburne who said of him that he 
had never had "a more sincere, unselfish, and devoted friend, 
personal and poHtical," and that as "friend and citizen, Mr. 
Cowdin was almost without a peer." Mr. Washburne, it will 
be recalled, was the only member of the diplomaric corps from 
any country who remained at his post during the siege of Paris 
and the still more trying days of the Commune. Mr. Wash- 
burne was living near the Bois de Boulogne where shells were 
falling thick and fast. When his house was bombarded he 
followed Mr. Cowdin's suggestion and moved to the latter's 
apartment. It, too, was shelled but without serious damage. 
At one time, after a brief absence, Mr. Cowdin and Mr. Wash- 
burne returned to find forty Prussian officers quartered in the 
apartment. Fortunately, they departed upon learning that it 
was temporarily the American Legation. At home he was a 
warm supporter of the Union, a prime mover in the formation 
of the Union Leagues, and vice-president of that of New 

64 



MARRIAGE 65 

York. His brother, Robert Cowdin, later a Brigadier-General 
of Volunteers, had led one of the first regiments to the defense 
of Washington, and the first regiment to volunteer " for three 
years or the war,"^ Of Elliot Cowdin's services to the cause. 
General Sherman said, "he was always kind to us who fought 
for our country in its day of peril . . . among all my ac- 
quaintances I can recall no more ardent, enthusiastic, and 
generous patriot than Mr. Cowdin, and I lament his death as a 
national loss. I hope his children will grow up to prolong his 
good name and fame."^ Mr. William M. Evarts, at various 
times Attorney-General, Secretary of State, and Senator of the 
United States, declared Mr. Cowdin to be one of the few who 
seemed "both to understand and to perform pubHc duty." 
Through a sense of duty he consented to serve a term in the 
New York legislature. Not the least tribute to Mr. Cowdin's 
work is, that the distinguished critic Edwin P. Whipple was his 
friend from boyhood and wrote an admirable memoir of him 
after his death in 1880. 

On her mother's side, Mrs. Bacon was connected with revolu- 
tionary famiHes of New Hampshire. The Cowdins as well as 
the Bacons had served the State. 

In a little collection of maxims of conduct and religion en- 
titled Some Fruits of Solitude ^ "the most devotional and charm- 
ing" of William Penn's many writings, and Mr. Bacon's book of 
books, which he always carried with him, in civil life and on 
the Western Front, occurs this passage, 

Never Marry but for Love; but see that thou lov'st what is 
lovely. 

In Marriage do thou be wise; prefer the Person before Money, 
Vertue before Beauty, the Mind before the Body: Then thou hast a 
Wife, a Friend, a Companion, a Second Self; one that bears an equal 
Share with thee in all thy Toyls and Troubles.^ 

^The Cyclopaedia of American Biography, New and Enlarged edition of Appleton's 
Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1915), vol. i. 

2 Letter of General Sherman to Mrs. Cowdin, written shortly after her husband's 
death, April 12, 1880. A Memorial oj Elliot C. Cowdin by E. P. Whipple (Printed 
Privately), p. 29. 

^Favourite Thought Series (Dodge Publishing Company, New York), pp. 26, 30. 



PART III 

THE WORLD OF FINANCE 

" Seest thou a man diligent in his business ? He shall stand 
before kings; he shall not stand be/ore mean men.'' 



CHAPTER V 

The Relief of the Government 

Mr. Bacon settled down before he married, reversing the 
order of the process which he had himself recommended. He 
had worried during his trip round the world as to his future and 
immediately upon his return to Boston in the early summer of 
1 88 1, he took the first step, the one which counts, according to 
the proverb. 

The son of a Harvard graduate, a Harvard man to the 
marrow of his bones, he would naturally desire to make what 
might be called a Harvard connection. Doubtless he had in 
mind a business career, and banking would make an appeal 
to the son of one who had represented the Barings, and who 
lived in an atmosphere of banks, banking, and finance. It was 
also natural that the thought of the father, if not of the son, 
should turn to Lee, Higginson & Company, bankers and 
brokers of Boston. The Lees and Higginsons who formed the 
firm were Harvard men, and a life-long friend of the Bacons was 
Major Henry Lee Higginson. In a letter to Mrs. Bacon, Major 
Higginson tells how it happened: 

In the early seventies William Bacon lived in Hotel Hamilton here 
— and we were on the top story — so I used to see the father and the 
beautiful son. Then he went to college and at his graduation they 
asked me to take him into our office — which I was glad to do. There 
he did excellent work and was valued highly — and in my stay abroad 
he left us to become a partner with Morse — and the rest you know. . . . 

I've quite forgotten to speak of his beautiful mother who held us 
— boys then — fast. 

Mr. Bacon's lines fell in pleasant places, and he might have 
passed his life with his friends, men like Colonel Henry Lee and 
Major Higginson, whom he admired and venerated. 

69 



70 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

In 1883, he accepted an offer, at the age of twenty-three, to 
become a member of the firm of E. Rollins Morse and Brother, 
of Boston, and remained there until Mr. John Pierpont Morgan 
persuaded him to quit Boston and settle in New York as a 
member of the firm of J. P. Morgan & Company. Mr. 
Morgan had known Mr. Bacon for years. He had followed his 
progress with interest; he had had the firm of which Mr. Bacon 
was a member handle business in Boston; Mr. Bacon had 
frequently been called to New York to discuss matters with the 
great man of Wall Street. There was therefore nothing un- 
usual in Mr. Morgan's request to Mr. Bacon in the fall of 
1894 to come to New York for a conference. He went, and 
he returned with an offer of partnership in Mr. Morgan's firm. 
The honour was indeed great; but Mr. Bacon was loath to 
accept, for it meant giving up Boston, within whose shadow the 
Bacons had grown up and prospered for two centuries and a 
half. It seemed to his friends little less than an act of be- 
trayal. Major Higginson saying to him face to face that like 
Esau of old he was selling his birthright for a mess of pottage. 
It interfered with the plans of the family, for he and Mrs. 
Bacon had made arrangements to go with the children to 
France, in order that they might learn French, as she had done 
in her childhood, an acquisition to which Mr. and Mrs. Bacon 
attached the greatest importance. 

As one of Mr. Morgan's partners has put it, Mr. Morgan had 
"fallen in love" with Mr. Bacon; he had found him sound and 
conservative; careful and industrious, with a charm of manner, 
tact, and a skill in negotiation which were irresistible. He in- 
sisted on having Mr. Bacon near him. Mr. Bacon came and 
brought a personality which had captivated Mr. Morgan, and 
qualities which, in Mr. Morgan's opinion, the firm needed. 
Mr. Morgan rejoiced in his presence, so much so that he never 
quite forgave him, long afterward, for resigning from the firm 
on account of ill health. Indeed, later, when Mr. Bacon re- 
signed from the Ambassadorship of France to become a Fellow 
of Harvard University, Mr. Morgan, then withdrawing some- 
'what from business, insisted that Mr. Bacon should have an 
adjoining office, and actually forced him into compliance, 
although Mr. Bacon did not need such pretentious quarters 
for his private affairs. 



THE RELIEF OF THE GOVERNMENT 71 

Major Higginson forgave the young Esau and gave him 
his blessing in a letter of November 23, 1894. 

My dear Bob, 

Thank you for coming to say good-bye. I'd have gone to you, had 
I thought you were leaving so soon. 

If Pierpont Morgan gets as much pleasure out of you and as man/ 
pleasant words and looks as I have had, since we all lived in Hotel 
Hamilton (1870) he will be a lucky fellow. And why shouldn't he, 
for he deserves it, and is kind and pleasant to people — such is my 
experience with him. 

Since first you and I met, you've always been very welcome to me 
and always will be — and we've had no bad "quarter of an hour," 
have we? I was very glad to have you come into the office, and 
very sorry indeed to see you go. It was one of the errors of my trip 
to Europe. 

Of course you're right to go to N. Y. — At your age I'd gladly have 
gone — indeed have always wished to live there. 

In that house you'll be most useful and comfortable — and the more 
that your partners are such pleasant men to deal with daily. 

Don't overwork like Coster just because you can and like to do it. 
He is wonderful — and unwise — to do so. 

Trade with me when you can. I'm always ready, and see me if 
you are in town. 

Yours affectionately, 
Best wishes always. H. L. Higginson. 

Mr. Bacon's feelings may be imagined, but conjecture is 
unnecessary, as he stated them himself in a letter of December 
26, 1894, to Mrs. Bacon, then in Tours, with "three dear little 
boys and one dear little girl," as Grandfather Bacon wrote in a 
letter of December of the very same year. 

I shall go at once to Jam. [aica] Plain and I positively dread it. I 
feel a faint-hearted coward about it all now and cannot bear the idea 
of having really pulled up stakes for good but there are moments of 
weakness (although I am really glad that I do feel so), and when I 
once get to work, I shall not have much time for them. 

In a hurried letter of March 26th, of the next year, he writes 
to Mrs. Bacon that he may not be able to bring her home from 
France, states the reasons why and recounts the one bit of 



72 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

pleasure which Mrs. Bacon would share, that he had had in 
the first anxious weeks with J. P. Morgan & Company: 

I am terribly afraid I cannot come for you as I do not see how I can 
possibly take more than a few days' vacation. I am really working 
for perhaps the first time in my life. I almost feel as if I were just 
beginning to find a use for the poor substitute which I am pleased to 
call my brain. J. P. sails to-morrow in the Majestic and I assure you 
that I shudder a little to think of the responsibility which I feel. The 
past two months have been a wonderful epoch. The next two months 
will be more difficult in many ways. My Hfe is simply engrossed in 
this maelstrom, and I have no moments for any other thoughts except 
thoughts of you . . . and your litde brood working away in 
exile. 

These months were indeed trying, as Mr. Bacon was asso- 
ciated with his great chief in saving the credit and good faith 
of the Government, and after Mr. Morgan's departure, in the 
midst of the undertaking he was left to handle the last phase 
alone. 

But to the letter: 

To-night I had the one engagement which I have made in advance 
all winter. I dined with Alice Murray, why I don't know except the 
invitation came more than three weeks ago and I hadn't the face to 
plead a previous engagement. It was a very small dinner — Eleanor 
Chapman was the only person I knew and I liked her because she 
talked of you and called you Martha ... I am thankful of a 
little divertissement for my head fairly buzzes night and day with 
business and its worries. Like Louis XIII, I never sleep now — "je 
ne dors plus. Monsieur, je reve quelquefois^ voila tout." 

I 

Mr. Bacon became a partner of J. P. Morgan & Company 

at the end of 1894, and remained in the firm until the last day 

of 1903. In the course of these years Mr. Bacon handled many 

important matters, but there was one head to the company. 

The firm was Mr. Morgan's; he had made it what it was, he 

directed its policy. His partners were "hand picked"; to use 

a common and expressive phrase. They were his juniors and, 

however able, they were lieutenants, not commanders. They 

were associated with Mr. Morgan in such matters as he chose' 

to have them handle with him personally, or to carry out under 



THE RELIEF OF THE GOVERNMENT 73 

his direction. Of the many "enterprises of great pith and 
moment" in which Mr. Bacon took part, either personally with 
Mr. Morgan or under his direction, three may be said to stand 
out in importance as well as interest. They are the relief of 
the Government of the United States in the panic of 1895; the 
formation of the United States Steel Corporation in 1901, and 
the negotiations which resulted in the Northern Securities 
Company of the same year. 

The Relief of the Government'^ 

On the morning of February 5, 1895, Mr. Morgan, Mr. Bacon, 
and Mr. Stetson entered the White House. Mr. John G. 
Carlisle, then Secretary of the Treasury, Richard Olney, then 
Attorney-General and soon to succeed the Secretary of State 
and to become one of the most distinguished holders of that 
office, were present. Secretary Carlisle explained to Mr. 
Cleveland the financial situation which had become desperate, 
especially in New York. The Conference had already lasted 
several hours, when Secretary Carlisle informed the President 
that according to a memorandum taken from a telephone mes- 
sage there were but nine million dollars gold left in the United 
States Sub-Treasury in New York City. During all this time, 
Messrs. Morgan, Bacon, and Stetson had taken no part in the 
proceedings, Mr. Morgan, as usual, silent and firm as a rock. 
His opinion had not been asked, but at this point he volun- 
teered: "Mr. President, the Secretary of the Treasury knows 
of one check outstanding for twelve million dollars. If this is 
presented to-day, it is all over." Secretary Carlisle confirmed 
this statement. President Cleveland turned to Mr. Morgan 

^The account of this very important transaction was originally based upon the in- 
formation contained in the testimony of the chief actors before the Sub-Committee of 
the Finance Committee of the United States Senate for the investigation of the sale 
of Government bonds during 1 894-1 895, 1896. {Senate Document No. i8y, 54th Con- 
gress, 2nd Session.) 

Mr. Carl Hovey's Life Story of J. Pierpont Morgan (191 was consulted. It was 
noted that Mr. Hovey's version was more personal and contained details which rarely 
find their way into official reports and documents. In a review of this book in the 
New York Nation, February 22, I9i2,p. 184, it is said that certain portions of the narra- 
tive are based upon "inside information," and that incidents and details, particularly 
those relating to the loan to the Government, "could hardly have been otherwise as- 
certained." With Mr. Hovey's permission, some of these "incidents and details" 
have been used either in the text of or in the notes to this section. 



74 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

and asked: "Have you anything to suggest?" Mr. Morgan 
made his suggestion. It was adopted.^ 

Some observations of a general character are advisable to 
understand how matters had come to this pass— why Messrs. 
Morgan, Bacon, and Stetson met with Mr. Cleveland, and what 
Mr. Morgan suggested. 

The United States had hardly recovered from the panic of 
1893, caused by over-production, over-promoting, over-specu- 
lation. There were in addition two sources of embarrass- 
ment. 

Some three hundred and fifty millions of United States notes 
commonly called greenbacks were outstanding, which were 
payable upon presentation to the Treasury in coin, that is, 
either in gold or silver. Secretary Carlisle elected, with the 
approval of the President, to pay in gold.- The Treasury had 
collected and endeavoured to keep on hand a reserve of one 
hundred and fifty million dollars in gold, one half of which was 
found to be sufficient to meet all demands. It might have 
continued to do so but for a provision of the law of 1878 re- 
quiring the Secretary of the Treasury to receive, pay, and re- 
issue the notes. The same notes could thus be used time and 
again, to drain the Treasury of its gold. 

Of the withdrawals from the Treasury during the year, more 
than $172,000,000 in gold was for "shipment abroad or hoard- 
ing at home"; and of this huge sum, as we might call it if the 
World War had not taught us to think in billions, more than 
two thirds, in round numbers 169,000,000, in gold was with- 
drawn in the two months preceding this meeting. 

The situation was further complicated by the fact that silver 
had fallen steadily since 1878. Silver "depreciated," gold 
"appreciated." The friends of silver called upon Congress 
to restrain by statute the inexorable law of supply and demand. 
By the Sherman "law" the Secretary of the Treasury was di- 
rected to buy four million five hundred thousand ounces of 
silver a month and to issue Treasury notes redeemable in gold 
or silver at his discretion. Debased coin has in the past always 
driven out good coin. That this did not happen in the present 

'Hovey, Life Story oJJ. Pierpont Morgan, p. 178. 

■Senate Document No. i8y, 54th Congress, 2nd Session, pp. 222-243. 



THE RELIEF OF THE GOVERNMENT 75 

case was "wholly due to maintenance of gold payments against 
the Treasury notes, with a steadily dwindling gold reserve."^ 
The Sherman law was repealed within three years of its pas- 
sage. But it had accelerated the process of depleting the 
Treasury. 

In this state of affairs the administration decided, upon the 
advice of Mr. August Belmont, to consult Mr. Morgan, who 
was of the opinion that the Government could get gold only 
from the sale of bonds abroad, and "that it was very doubtful 
whether the gold could be secured in Europe, but that an at- 
tempted negotiation was essential. '"' 

Mr. Morgan's account of the beginning of the negotiations 
is thus stated in his testimony before the Sub-Committee of the 
Senate: 

Mr. Curtis [Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, who had gone to 
New York to confer with Mr. Belmont] asked me if we would be pre- 
pared to undertake it, provided the President and the Secretary of the 
Treasury requested it. I told him that I felt bound to do so and that 
I was prepared to proceed upon a basis which I would prepare during 
the day and which he would take to Washington, and that from there 
he could let me know whether it was agreeable to the President and 
the Secretary of the Treasury. 

That memorandum provided for a private contract as essential, 
and it would be understood before we began that if we were successful 
such a contract would be made. Mr. Curtis went to Washington . . . 

Mr. Curtis returned from Washington the following morning 
[February 2nd], and we were given to understand that the basis pro- 
posed by me had been agreeable to the Treasury and that we were to 
proceed with the negotiation. . . . 

Neither Mr. Belmont nor myself doubted for a moment that the 
terms would be satisfactory and that the business was practically 
settled, when on Monday morning [February 4th] we received a letter 
from the Secretary stating that they had decided to abandon the 
private negotiation. 

Knowing, as I did know, the inevitable result of a public announce- 
ment of the abandonment of the negotiation, I urged Mr. Belmont to 
leave at once for Washington, and stated that I would communicate 



^Review of Mr. Hovey's Life Story of J. Pierpont Morgan in the New York Nation 
for February 22, 1912, pp. 184-185. 

^Senate Document No. 187, p. 293. 



76 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

with the Department by telephone or telegraph as soon as possible 
after reaching the office.^ 

Mr. Morgan did so and learned that the Department in- 
tended "to issue a public advertisement that afternoon." 
Mr. Morgan advised strongly against this course, and asked 
that action be postponed until Mr. Belmont and he could see 
the President and the Secretary. The delay was granted. 

On Monday morning, February 4th, Mr. Belmont left New 
York for Washington; Mr. Morgan and Mr. Bacon left in the 
afternoon, accompanied by Mr. Stetson, Mr. Morgan's counsel. 
Of course, this news was telegraphed to Washington. Just 
what Mr. Morgan's plan or purpose was, nobody knew, but, as 
he has since expressed it, he felt that it was his duty to go 
down and see the President once more, although he had not 
been bidden to do so. 

When he got off the train in Washington, to his surprise he was 
met by Daniel Lamont, the Secretary of War, who informed him that 
his coming to Washington had been reported and that whatever his 
errand was it was only fair for him to know that the President had 
not changed his attitude about the responsibility of Congress for the 
situation; he would not consider a private bond sale and he would not 
see Mr. Morgan. After Mr. Lamont ceased speaking, Mr. Morgan 
told him that he had come to Washington to see the President, that he 
was going to the Arlington Hotel and would stay there until he saw him. 
Hailing a cab, he jumped into it and drove to the hotel with Bacon. 

The news of his arrival was quickly noised around and immediately 
the Treasury officials, leaders in Congress and others familiar with the 
situation, came to see him. . . . 

All the evening this sort of reception went on, Mr. Morgan sat 
and listened and smoked and said nothing. It was after midnight 
when the last of the callers left, and finally Bacon went to bed, leaving 
Mr. Morgan still working out a game of solitaire. The people in the 
hotel said later that his light was not extinguished until after four 
o'clock. It was not only a problem involving clubs, spades, and 
diamonds, that he was engaged in. There was only one day's supply 
of gold left in the United States Treasury and a plan had to be worked 
out to save the Nation's credit. . . . While Mr. Morgan and Mr. 
Bacon were breakfasting together, about half-past nine o'clock, the 



^Senate Document No. i8y, p. 293. 




Elihu Root, Secretary of Stati 




< > 

- o 



> ^ 






9 CQ 



P3 



cc 



THE RELIEF OF THE GOVERNMENT 77 

financier told his junior partner of the plan that he had evolved the 
night before over his game of solitaire. . . . 

Before they had finished their meal, they began to receive reports 
of the opening of business in New York and learned that the run on 
the Treasury continued. . . . The telephone rang and Mr. 
Bacon received a message to the effect that the President would see 
Mr. Morgan. Not even stopping to light his customary after break- 
fast cigar, the financier started with Bacon across Lafayette Square, 
for the White House^. 

In reply to President Qeveland's question, "Have you any- 
thing to suggest?" Mr. Morgan told him what he had explained 
to Mr. Bacon at greater length some hours earlier at the break- 
fast table, that in 1862 President Lincoln was faced with an 
empty treasury; that he sent the then Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, Salmon P. Chase, to New York to confer with bankers in 
New York to hit upon a plan to get gold in the Treasury, that 
the bankers suggested an act of Congress, which Congress 
passed on March 17, 1862; that under this act gold had been 
sold to the Government by the house with which Mr. Morgan, 
then a young man, was connected; that the act, if unrepealed 
or unmodified by subsequent legislation, would ^ve Secretary 
Carlisle the same power which it had given Secretary Chase, 
and that it would prove of equal benefit.^ Therefore Congress 
had already acted; the authorization was at hand; there was 
no longer a pretext for delay, and delay itself was now the 
greatest danger confronting the Government, 

President Cleveland therefore took up with Mr. Morgan the 
terms upon which he, as representative of a syndicate, should 
procure from abroad and furnish to the Government the neces- 
sary amount of gold. Eventually the amount of three million five 

'Hovey's Life Story of J. Pierpont Morgan, pp. ij 2-177. 

*" At a word from the President, Attorney-General Olney stepped out of the room and 
in a moment returned with thyc book of Revised Statutes. He told the President that 
what Mr. Morgan had said was perfectly true, that this act was known as 'Section 
No. 3700,' and that from a casual examination he thought it was still in force. Mr. 
Cleveland quietly took the book from his hand and with deep concentration read the 
act to himself. . . 

" Everyone in the room sat in the silence of deep suspense. When the President had 
concluded the reading of the section, he laid the book slowly on his desk, and then his 
face lighted up with almost a smile of relief and he said: 'Mr. Morgan, I think the act is 
ample for our needs and that it will solve the situation'." Hovey's Life Story of 
y. Pierpont Morgan, pp. 179-180. 



78 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

hundred thousand ounces was agreed upon. The price was fixed 
at $17.80 per ounce, which would supply the Treasury with about 
sixty-five millions, which Secretary Carlisle felt to be sufficient. 

Two days later, on the afternoon of Thursday, February 
7th, the House of Representatives rejected the so-called 
Springer Bill, which would have given the President the author- 
ity he desired, and would have had the advantage of saddling 
Congress with the responsibility. Until Congress had acted 
one way or the other, Mr. Cleveland refused finally to commit 
himself. But on the rejection of the bill, he had to act on his 
own responsibility. Therefore, on the next day, February 8th, 
the details of the arrangement were concluded and the President 
so informed Congress in a message of the same date. 

The United States did not suspend payment then or since. 

President Cleveland and Secretary Carlisle were bitterly 
attacked because, in the opinion of some of their critics, they 
should have made better terms for the Governmen.t, and in 
the opinion of others, they should not have made a- private 
loan under any circumstances; Messrs. Belmoni and Morgan 
were attacked because they had driven a hard bargain and 
had made money out of the necessities of the Government. 
Actually, all parties to the transaction had reason to be satis- 
fied. The President and the Secretary of the Treasury, who 
had saved the good faith of the United States; Messrs^ Belmont 
and Morgan that they had rendered a patriotic service.^ 

iln George F. Parker's Recollections of Graver Cleveland (1909), pp. 324-5, Mr. 
Cleveland's opinion of Mr. Morgan's ability, character, and services is thus stated: 

When it came to dealing with him on the bond issues for the purpose of replenishing 
the Government's stock of gold, I had a feeling, not of suspicion, but of watchful- 
ness. . . 

I had not gone far, however, before my doubts disappeared. . . . In an hour or 
two of the preliminary discussion 'I saw he had a clear comprehension of what I 
wanted and what was needed, and that, with lightning-like rapidity, he had reached 
a conclusion as to the best way to meet the situation. I saw, too, that, with him, 
it was not merely a matter of business, but of clear-sighted, far-seeing patriotism. 
He was not looking for a personal bargain, but sat there, a great patriotic banker, 
concerting with me and my advisers measures to avert peril, determined to do his best 
in a severe and trying crisis. . . 

When the negotiations were over I was also interested in getting from him some 
idea as to how he did it, so at one of our concluding sittings I asked: "Mr. Morgan^ 
how did you know that you could command the cooperation of the great financial 
interests of Europe?" He replied: "I simply told them that this was necessary for 
the maintenance of the public credit and the promotion of industrial peace, and they 
did it." 



THE RELIEF OF THE GOVERNMENT 79 

It was a mark of confidence for Mr. Morgan to pick out 
Mr. Bacon as his lieutenant. From the beginning of this deli- 
cate, difficult, and vastly important transaction he handled its 
details in association with Mr. Morgan; in the later stages, 
Mr. Morgan was in Europe, and his junior partner was in 
charge. Mr. Bacon rightly regarded it as a great honour, for 
in serving his chief, he was serving the country, and service to 
the United States was a passion with Mr. Bacon, 



CHAPTER VI 

The United States Steel Corporation 

As Lord Erskine was passing through a quarter of London 
which had seen better days, his attention was attracted to a 
stately house, once the residence of a fellow lawyer, but which 
was now doing duty as a blacksmith's shop. He mused for a 
moment, scratched these lines, and passed on : 

The house a lawyer once enjoy'd, 

Now to a smith doth pass; 
How naturally the iron age 

Succeeds the age of brass! 

Naturally, indeed, but neither so naturally nor so rapidly as 
the age of steel has succeeded that of iron, due to the Bessemer 
process, which ushered in for the steel magnate the age of gold. 

The Iron Master, or the Steel King, as Andrew Carnegie has 
been called (he might perhaps with equal propriety be termed 
the Httle Alchemist)^ had, as early as 1868, planned to retire 
from business, to devote himself to practical philanthropy.^ 
The unsettled condition of affairs at the end of the Civil War, 
the financial panic of 1873, involving the failure of Jay Cooke 

'In an address delivered at a meeting held in the City of New York, April 25, 1920, in 
memory of the life and work of Andrew Carnegie, the Honourable Elihu Root said, 
"He belonged to that great race of nation builders who have made the progress and 
development of America the wonder of the world." Year Book oj the Carnegie Endow- 
ment for International Peace, .920, p. 196. 

'"Thirty-three and an income of ^50,000 per annum! By this time two years I can 
so arrange all my business as to secure at least $50,000 per annum. Beyond this never 
earn — make no effort to increase fortune, but spend the surplus each year for benevolent 
purposes. Cast aside business forever except for others. . . . 

"Man must have an idol — the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idola- 
try — no idol more debasing than the worship of money. Whatever I engage in I must 
push inordinately; therefore should I be careful to choose that life which will be the 
most elevating in its character. To continue much longer overwhelmed by business 
cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the 
shortest time, must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery. I will resign 
business at thirty-five." Autobiography oJ Andrew Carnegie (1920), pp. 157-158. 

80 



THE UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION 8i 

and Company and a multitude of other bankers, brokers, and 
business men caused him to postpone his retirement. Finally, 
however, matters came to a crisis with the end of the century, 
when he found himself confronted with the alternative of losing 
his supremacy in the world of business, or of enlarging his al- 
ready enormous business so as to make himself independent 
of his competitors. He preferred to dispose of his interests to 
them. He sold out, and the United States Steel Corporation 
came into being. 

Consolidation was the watchword of the last quarter of the 
century. Big business was replacing little business; smaller 
holdings were merging into larger, and groups, whether com- 
peting or not, were consolidated. But two years before the 
end of the century the Federal Steel Company, with a capital 
of one hundred million dollars, was formed of various com- 
panies, "in order to create a company," as Mr. Bacon put it 
in testimony which he gave in a suit brought by the Govern- 
ment against the Steel Corporation, "which for the first time 
owed its raw material, iron ore, and transportation facilities 
to manufacturing plants." But this great company was in- 
complete. It lacked, again to quote Mr. Bacon, "a great 
many finishing mills and distributing plants."^ It therefore 
became the policy of the company to "acquire or build further 
finishing plants, to make it more complete." 

In the creation of the Federal Steel Corporation, Elbert H. 
Gary, who became its president, and Robert Bacon, did most 
of the work. 2 From his position as well as from his belief in the 
possibilities of steel, Mr. Gary became the leading advocate for 
the formation of a still larger corporation, which should include 
Mr. Carnegie's holdings, for without them the competition 
would be great, and might become too great. Mr. Gary felt 
that only the firm of J. P. Morgan & Company could finance 
such an undertaking. Mr. Carnegie was of the same opinion. 
Mr. Bacon was the member of the firm responsible for the 
Federal Steel Corporation and anxious to see it increase in 
power and usefulness. He was by this time not only Mr. 
Morgan's experienced and trusted lieutenant; he had become 



*MS. Report of Hearings before the Special Examiner. 
^Herbert N. Casson, The Romance of Steel (1907), p. 191. 



82 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

his associate and representative in the larger affairs of finance. 
But Mr. Bacon could only act if the head of the firm consented, 
and Mr. Morgan would only act when he was convinced. 

From the creation of the Federal Steel Corporation in 1898, 
the possibility of the purchase of Mr. Carnegie's holdings was 
in the air. The Carnegie interests kiiew this, and they looked 
upon Mr. Morgan as the prospective purchaser. Until the 
last month of 1900, no outward progress had been made. In 
that month, to be specific, on December 12th, a dinner was 
given, in the city of New York, by two representatives of Mr. 
Carnegie's interests. Mr. Morgan's presence was greatly de- 
sired by the promoters of this social occasion; not less desirable 
was the presence of Mr. Charles Schwab, then president of 
the Carnegie Steel Company. Nothing was more natural 
than that Mr. Schwab should, when the cofl^ee was served, 
make some observations on steel and its possibilities; nothing 
was more natural than that Mr. Morgan should listen to the 
speaker of the occasion. Nothing was more fortunate for all 
concerned than Mr. Morgan's conversion, for he left the dinner 
a professed believer in steel and the possibilities of steel as set 
forth in glowing terms by Mr. Schwab. 

As Mr. Bacon puts it in his testimony, "Mr. Morgan told 
me of the conversation he had had with Mr. Schwab at that 
dinner, and it was evident that he had been very much im- 
pressed by the new light that had been thrown upon the whole 
steel situation, its growth and possibilities, and for the first 
time he indicated to me that it seemed a possible thing to un- 
dertake the purchase of the Carnegie Company." In another 
portion of his testimony Mr. Bacon stated that Mr. Schwab 
impressed Mr. Morgan "with the fact that the iron and steel 
business was just bursting into a new and tremendous field 
of importance and activity and consumption, and that that 
justified the possibilities, and under those conditions justified 
the purchase of the Carnegie Company and of others to meet 
the new conditions." The fact, therefore, is that Mr. Morgan 
was converted by Mr. Schwab.^ 

Whatever the reasons may have been, negotiations began 

'The alleged motives which actuated Mr. Schwab and those for whom he was acting 
have been given in a vivacious manner by Mr. Arundel Cotter, in his United States 
Steel — A Corporation with a Soul, 2nd Edition 1921, pp. 18-21, 25. 



THE UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION 83 

after the dinner, and they were completed before the effects of 
the dinner had subsided. As is to be expected, Mr. Carnegie 
has something to say of the transaction in his Autobiography y 
and, properly enough, in the opening lines of the chapter on the 
"Gospel of Wealth,"^ for the sale of his interests enable him to 
"live up to its teachings by ceasing to struggle for more 
wealth." This is his account: 

At this juncture — that is March, 1901 — Mr. Schwab told me Mr. 
Morgan had said to him he should really like to know if I wished to 
retire from business; if so he thought he could arrange it. He also 
said he had consulted our partners and that they were disposed to sell, 
being attracted by the terms Mr. Morgan had offered. I told Mr. 
Schwab that if my partners were desirous to sell I would concur, and 
we finally sold. 

We have Mr. Carnegie's word for it, that he "declined to take 
anything for the common stock," which, had he done so, would 
have given him "about one hundred millions more of 5 per 
cent, bonds, which Mr. Morgan said afterward I could have 
obtained." 

In an investigation before a Committee of the House of 
Representatives, in January, 191 2, Mr. Carnegie gave a detail 
or two lacking in his Autobiography: 

I considered what was fair and that is the option Morgan got. 
Schwab went down and arranged it ... I have been told many 
times since by insiders that I should have asked ^100,000,000 more 
and could have got it easily. 

The language of "insiders" is to the same effect, but it is 
more outspoken. According to them Mr. Carnegie is reported 
to have said one day to Mr. Morgan, when the principals in 
the duel met, rumour has it, on a steamer, "Pierpont, I am 
told that I could have got a hundred million dollars more for 

iPp. 255-256. "This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth; To set an ex- 
ample of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide 
moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing 
so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he 
is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in 
the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial 
results for the community — the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and 
agent for his poorer brethren." The Gospel of Wealth. 



84 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

my holdings," to which the imperturbable financier and man 
of few words replied, "Very likely, Andrew." 

If the preferred stock be taken at par, and the common 
stock at fifty, the price for Mr. Carnegie's personal holdings 
amounted in all to $447,416,640; if to this forty millions of 
profit for the year be added, the total was nearly half a billion. 
In these post helium days a billion is a familiar unit; but 
before the war the imagination was excited by half a billion. 
"It was," to quote an authority on steel, "almost a two- 
hundredth part of the national wealth. It was the value of all 
the wheat, barley, and cheese produced in the United States in 
1900, more than the combined dividends of all American rail- 
roads for the previous four years. It would pay the Presi- 
dent's salary for nine thousand years. It was more than a 
year's product of gold, silver, and coal. In Germany it would 
build ten enormous steel plants Hke Krupp's— the pride of 
Europe. And for this huge sum Carnegie offered, not an 
empire, not a State, but a single corporation with forty-five 
thousand employees."^ 

Mr. Bacon, however, was of the opinion that this was the 
fair value under the circumstances. If the purchase is to be 
looked upon as a game, it was assuredly a game well played. 
Mr. Carnegie got a purchaser, and Mr. Morgan what he wanted 
at one hundred million dollars less than he was willing to pay. 
The stakes were great because the hazards were great. 

But it was not a five hundred million dollar corporation. 
Altogether it totalled $1,384,681,297. "Consequently," to 
quote again the authority from which the above passage is 
taken, "when Morgan coolly announced that his new company 
would pay interest or dividends upon nearly fourteen hundred 
millions, the whole international world of finance was speech- 
less with surprise." - 

Events have more than justified the purchase and the crea- 
tion of the mammoth corporation, both by profits which have 
flowed Hke golden streams into the pockets of the fortunate 
holders of stock, and to the public at large, which has benefited 
in greater degree although not in such a tangible manner. The 
corporation has not throttled competition; it has not driven 

'Herbert N. Casson, The Romance of Steel (1907), pp. 189-190. 
'Ibid., pp. 220-221. 



THE UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION 85 

out competitors. When it was organized, it controlled, it was 
said, two thirds of the steel industry of the country. Some 
twenty years after its organization it controls approximately 
one third. 

The Steel Corporation has been the subject of favourable and 
unfavourable reports which have been made from time to 
time by various departments of the Government. In 191 1 
the Government filed its bill under the provisions of the Anti- 
Trust Act, to have it enjoined and dissolved as an illegal cor- 
poration. The case was heard before the four Circuit Judges 
for the District of New Jersey, who unanimously decreed in 
favour of the corporation.^ In 191 5, five years later, the 
Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the decree of the 
lower court on appeal.^ The United States Steel Corporation 
is therefore a going concern; a monument to the foresight of 
those who proposed its creation, to the ingenuity of those who 
incorporated it, and to the wisdom and moderation of those 
who have administered its vast and increasing interests. 

From a Minute submitted by Mr. Gary, chairman of the 
Board of Directors of the United States Steel Corporation and 
adopted by that body, it appears that: 

Hon. Robert Bacon was a member of the Board of Directors of this 
Corporation, with some short interruptions, from the time of its 
organization to the time of his death. — He was Chairman of the 
Finance Committee from April 9, 1 901, until November 12th of the 
same year, when he resigned. 

The Minute, approved by members connected with the 
Corporation from its inception and in a position to know, thus 
states the part taken by Mr. Bacon in the organization of this 
billion-dollar corporation : 

During the negotiations relating to the acquisition of properties 
and the development of plans for the organization and management 
of the United States Steel Corporation, from the time the subject was 
first suggested until shortly before purchases were completed and 
plans finally consummated, Mr. Bacon assumed the leading part for 
J. P. Morgan & Company in their connection with the matter. 

'223 Federal Reporter, 55. 

^25 1 United States Reports, 4 17. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Northern Securities Company* 

In the transactions culminating in the Securities Company, 
Mr. Bacon was associated not only with Mr. Morgan, of whose 
firm he was now a senior, but with James J. Hill, "the great 
man of the Northwest." Mr. Hill's confidence in Mr. Bacon 
was such as to lead him to say of the younger man, as he was 
wont to do of those who had captivated his head and heart 
alike, that one— meaning himself— could "go to sleep with 
one's thumb in his mouth." 

There are three stages in the formation of the Securities 
Company on November 13, 1901. The first, and assuredly not 
the least important, deals with the early activities of Mr. Hill. 
Here it may only be said that with his associates he reorganized 
the St. Paul Pacific Railroad, which had failed in 1873, i^^o 
the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba. This was in 1878, 
and he began at once the extension of the line then only three 
hundred and eighty miles long, to the Pacific. Of this road he 
became president, five years later. The various secondary 
lines, in which he was interested, were brought together to form 
the Great Northern Railway, extending not only from the 
Middle West on the east to Puget Sound on the west, but by 

'The account of the Northern Securities case is based primarily upon two publica- 
tions, and confirmed by personal information furnished by a member of the firm of 
J. P. Morgan & Company. 

The first of the publications is Joseph Gilpin Pyle's [Authorized] Lije of James J. 
Hill (1917), 2 vols. In a letter of December 30, 1922, giving permission to use his 
work, Mr. Pyle adds, "I may say that the chapters in the Life which deal with the 
Northern Securities case rest upon unquestionable documentary or personal authority 
and are bomb-proof." 

The second of the publications is George Kennan's E. H. Harriman (1922), 2 vols., 
the use of which was authorized by Mr. Kennan in a letter of December 29, 1922. 

The various suits to which the Northern Securities Company was a party have 
been read, and in addition, the briefs of counsel and testimony given in official 
hearings. 

86 



THE NORTHERN SECURITIES COMPANY 87 

direct lines of steamships to China and Japan as well. Of this 
system Mr. Hill was president at the time of the formation of 
the Securities Company.^ 

In the first stage also belongs Mr. Morgan's reorganization, 
in 1896, of the Northern Pacific Railway, which had failed in 
1893, as the Northern Pacific Railroad. This line likewise 
extended from the Middle West to the Pacific. It ran to the 
south of the Great Northern, but not far enough south to 
drain the vast region covered by the Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy Railway system running from Chicago in Illinois 
to Denver in Colorado and Billings in Montana, gathering as 
within a net of iron the rich products of Iowa, Missouri, Kan- 
sas, and Nebraska. 

Farther to the south was the Union Pacific system running 
from Kansas City in Missouri to Ogden in Utah; thence west 
and to San Francisco in California by the Southern Pacific, 
and northwest from Ogden to Portland in Oregon and Spokane 
in Washington, by the Oregon Short Line and the Oregon 
Railroad and Navigation Company. Mr. Hill, of the Great 
Northern, held large quantities of stock in the Northern Pacific 
with Mr. Morgan's approbation, so that these two lines were 
practically allied, if not actually united. The Union Pacific 
was controlled by Edward H. Harriman. To each of these 
systems the possession or control of the Chicago, Burlington 
& Quincy was of moment; to the Great Northern and the 
Northern Pacific, with terminals at Duluth and St. Paul in 
Minnesota, and to the Union Pacific, terminating at Kansas 

iPresident Cleveland came closely Into contact with Mr. Hill during both of his ad- 
ministrations, and he was, according to his biographer, Mr. George F. Parker, "wont, 
in later days, to speak, oftenest" of him. This was what Mr. Cleveland thought: 

"Mr. Hill is one of the most remarkable men I have seen, especially in his wide 
knowledge of a great variety of questions, and his far-sight into industrial condi- 
tions. . . 

"He knew more about Oriental trade and its relations to the business of this country 
than any man I ever saw. . . 

"When any information about freight rates on railroads was needed, there was 
little occasion for Mr. Hill to refer to reports or statistics. Nor was this all. 1 
verily believe that he could have told me the rates on all the leading classes of freight 
between two stations on his railroad, a hundred or two hundred miles apart. I am 
perfectly sure that I have never known a man who was at once familiar with so many 
big things and also had the gift of carrying about and comprehending what most 
persons so situated would deem too small for their attention." George F. Parker, 
Recollections oj Grover Cleveland (1909), pp. 326-327. 



88 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

City in Missouri, it would give access to Chicago, the very 
centre and heart of commercial America. 

The second stage was the acquisition of the Chicago, Burhng- 
ton & Quincy system by the Great Northern and the North- 
ern Pacific. 

The third was the formation of the Northern Securities as a 
holding or investment company for these lines henceforth 
forming a single system. 

As the negotiations leading to the acquisition of the Chicago, 
Burlington & Quincy are necessary to an understanding of 
the purposes of the Securities Company, they must therefore 
be considered, although they need not be set forth at length. 
Mr. Hill had thought of purchasing the Chicago, Burlington 
& Quincy in 1897, but the undertaking seemed then too large 
for* the Great Northern alone. Mr. Morgan turned his great 
constructive mind to the project about the same time. In the 
course of the hearings in the Northern Securities case, Mr. 
Morgan said: 

I think it was in 1899 — it may have been in 1898 — I made up my 
mind that it was essential that the Northern Pacific Railway Com- 
pany should have its terminus practically in Chicago, and in the 
same manner that the New York Central, of which I am a director, 
at that time or soon after decided the same thing with regard to their 
line, that the western terminus of their line should be in Chicago, 
practically by acquiring the Lake Shore; in other words, that the 
transcontinental line should come to Chicago, and that the eastern 
line should go to Chicago, so that was to be the central point, and I 
talked it over with a great many people mterested in the Northern 
Pacific, and I found they all agreed with me.^ 

However, before Messrs. Hill and Morgan purchased the line 
in 1901, Mr. Harriman turned his attention to the Burlington 
Company. Late in 1899 he sounded the officials of the road 
who were either unwilling to sell or were unwilling to accept the 
terms oflFered. Mr. Harriman came back to the subject in the 
spring of 1900, and endeavoured to buy as many as two hundred 
thousand shares of Burlington stock. The shares were held 

^Northern Securities Company and Others v. The United States, Brief for Appellant 
Great Northern Railway Company, Supreme Court of the United States, October 
term, 1903, No. 277, p. 8. 



THE NORTHERN SECURITIES COMPANY 89 

by some fifteen thousand small shareholders. It was hard to 
locate them and when found the price seemed too high. Mr. 
Harriman and his friends therefore gave up the attempt. In 
the early part of the next year Mr. Hill, with the approval and 
indeed at the request of Mr. Morgan, took up the purchase of 
the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy with the then president, 
Charles E. Perkins, a man of the Hill and Morgan type of 
mind, and with the other directors of the road. The negotia- 
tions, conducted by Mr. Hill for the Great Northern, and 
Mr. Bacon and Mr. Charles Steele of J. P. Morgan & Com- 
pany for the Northern Pacific, were successful. They were 
with the Burlington Company, whose Executive Committee 
fixed the price per share at $100, some twenty to twenty-five 
dollars above the price on the market, as Messrs. Hill and 
Morgan preferred to deal directly and openly with the au- 
thorized officers of the road, not indirectly and covertly upon 
the market; and in the name and benefit of the Great Northern 
and Northern Pacific systems, not as individuals and for their 
personal advantage. As a result the roads jointly purchased 
96.79 per cent, of the total authorized issue of the stock, 
amounting to 1,075,772 shares of the capital stock of the 
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company and in 
payment of the two roads issued "their Joint Collateral Trust 
Bonds and scrip to the amount of 1215,154,000."^ 

The Burlington was a very large line and, exclusive of systems 
which it leased or controlled, operated at the time of the 
purchase some 7,911 miles. 

A few weeks after the acquisition, Mr. Hill wrote to his 
Canadian friend, Lord Mount Stephen: 

'Pyle's Life of James J. Hill (1917), v. ii, p. 125. 

"It is true we pay a great price for the property. This could not be avoided. 
Seventy-five million dollars or $80,000,000 of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 
is held by small holders, many of whom got it by inheritance. The average holding 
of the stock by the company's books is 68 shares, in the hands of nearly 15,000 stock- 
holders." Mr. Hill to Lord Mount Stephen. Ibid., p. 126. 

The price was high, but not excessive. "It was the only price," to quote Mr. 
Morgan, "at which it could be bought and we had great difficulty in getting it at 
that; and, in the next place, I felt, and Mr. Hill must have felt also — because he 
does not think of making transactions he does not think are profitable — that it was 
worth a great deal more than that for the purpose for which we wanted it, and it 
would pay a large profit. He thought it would pay both the Northern Pacific and 
Great Northern a profit on that price." Pyle's Life of James J. Hilly vol. ii, pp. 122- 
123. 



90 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

With the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and Chicago, Burling- 
ton & Ouincy under one grand control, we have placed ourselves in a 
positioiTof strength as to traffic, terminal cities, and terminal facilities, 
and territorial control, which is now the strongest in the West and will 
daily grow stronger. We have secured another advantage by being 
in the best position to receive the western movement of population, 
which is beginning to assume proportions never before reached in the 
settlement of this country.^ 

The purchase turned out to the advantage of all concerned. 
Commerce between the states and foreign nations had in- 
creased more rapidly than in Mr. Hill's "forty years' experi- 
ence. The total tonnage of the Great Northern increased 
about 30 per cent. The foreign business increased more than 
100 per cent. The Northern Pacific reaped a similar benefit." 
The business of the Burlington increased "especially to the 
south and southwest." Traffic was created since the acquisi- 
tion, so that "we are able", to quote Mr. Hill's exact words, 
"not to compete alone with railways, for that is a small matter 
in this business, but to compete in the matter of rates with 
the ships going from New Orleans or from Galveston, or the 
railways carrying it anywhere, or in connection with any other 
system of transportation." "We have been able," Mr. Hill 
continues, "to reduce rates from 10 to 15 per cent, in a year on 
the local business between the Pacific Coast and the Twin Cities 
and Lake Superior. The Northern Pacific rates have also been 
reduced, and their revenue has been such as to enable them to 
make this reduction without any reduction of their dividends."^ 

Mr. Hill's biographer is bold enough to say: "No act, no 
policy in the history of American railroading was more com- 
pletely vindicated." 

But the two Northern lines had barely completed the pur- 
chase before their existence was menaced by the Union Pacific. 
They saved themselves, but their attempt was balked by the 
Courts to place their interests in a securities company to 
continue their policies which had proved profitable to the 
stockholder and the public, and to defend themselves and their 
successors against the speculator or adventurer. 

^Pyle's Life of James J. Hill, vol. ii, p. 129. 
*Ibid., pp. 131-133. 



THE NORTHERN SECURITIES COMPANY 91 

Mr. Harriman and his associates of the Union Pacific system 
quickly, determinedly, and successfully set about to buy up the 
stock of the Northern Pacific. Their purpose was divined 
by Mr. Hill and frustrated by Mr. Bacon and Mr. Steele during 
the absence of Mr. Morgan who had, after the purchase of the 
Burlington line, felt justified in going to Europe. 

During the progress of the negotiations for the purchase of 
the Burlington line, Mr. Harriman and his associates of the 
Union Pacific system asked to be a party to the transaction to 
the extent of a third interest and offered to pay one third of the 
purchase price. Mr. Hill refused "for the reason," among 
others, "that it would defeat our object in buying the Burling- 
ton."^ To this refusal Mr. Harriman replied, "Very well, it is 
a hostile act and you must take the consequences."^ Neither 
the Great Northern nor the Northern Pacific feared that the 
control of the Northern Pacific would pass into the control of 
other hands. With the shares of stock which Mr. Hill and his 
friends and the firm of J. P. Morgan held, Mr. Hill said that 
they had "in the neighbourhood of ^5 or 40 millions of the 
stock out of a total of 155 millions, which was larger than is 
usually held in any of the large companies. I did not think 
at the time that it was at all likely that anybody would under- 
take to buy in the market the control of 155 millions of stock."' 
Yet this happened. Through Kuhn, Loeb & Company, 
bankers and brokers of New York, Mr. Harriman began 
"swiftly and secretly" buying up Northern Pacific stock. 
By Friday night. May 3rd, there had been bought for the 
account of the Union Pacific "about 370,000 shares of the 
common stock . . . and about 420,000 shares of the pre- 
ferred, making a total of approximately $79,000,000. This was 
a clear majority of the two classes of stock taken together, but 
it lacked 30,000 or 40,000 shares of a majority in the common 
taken separately."^ 

Some of Mr. Hill's friends took advantage of the rise of 
Northern Pacific stock to sell to Mr. Harriman 's agents. 

'St. Paul G/oie, December 22, 1901. Pyle's Life of James J. Hill, vol. ii, p. 105. 
"George Kennan, E. H. Harriman, vol. i, p. 296 (1922). 
*LiJe of James J. Hill, vol. ii, p. 144. 
*£. H. Harriman, vol. i, p. 305. 



92 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

"One large holder, for example, sold to them 35,000 shares in a 
single lot. Even the Northern Pacific Company, tempted 
by the high prices, sold its own stock. As late as the 2d of May 
one of its subsidiary corporations, which happened to have in its 
treasury 13,000 Northern Pacific shares, sold them by direc- 
tion of the Northern Pacific board itself. So unsuspecting 
were Morgan & Co. that on the same day they sold 10,000 
shares which had happened to come into their hands in the 
ordinary course of business. All of this stock, or most of it, 
went directly to Kuhn, Loeb & Co., who were buying for 
Harriman and the Union Pacific."^ A few days more and 
Mr. Harriman would have accompHshed his purpose. Some- 
thing happened. Mr. Hill had noticed the unprecedented 
purchases of Northern Pacific stock, with the consequent and 
rapid advance in the value of common and preferred. He felt 
that something was wrong. He himself was in the far west, 
at Seattle. Mr. Morgan, his associate, was in Europe — art 
browsing in Italy. Therefore, Mr. Hill made up his mind to 
proceed at once to New York to size up the situation, to put 
himself in touch with Mr. Bacon, then in New York and in 
charge of the Morgan interests, and to take whatever measures 
were necessary and possible. 

Mr. Kennan, in his interesting life of Mr. Harriman, tells 
how Mr. Hill got east; what he found and what was done: 

He therefore called upon the operating officials of the Great North- 
ern to give him at once the fastest possible special train to St. Paul 
with unlimited right of way over everything. The superintendent 
of the western division furnished the "special" immediately and said 
to the locomotive engineers: "The road is yours to St. Paul; everything 
else on the line will be held up to let you pass. . . ." 

Mr. Hill arrived in New York on the afternoon of Friday, May 3d, 
and went at once to the office of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. to see Mr. Schiff 
[an old personal friend and former director of the Great Northern.] 
In reply to an inquiry as to the meaning of the rapid rise in Northern 
Pacific shares, SchifF informed Hill that Kuhn, Loeb & Co. were buy- 
ing them on orders from the Union Pacific. "But," said Hill, "you 
can't get control. The Great Northern, Morgan, and my friends were 
recently holding $35,000,000 or $40,000,000 of the Northern Pacific 
stock, and so far as 1 know none of it has been sold." "That may be," 

'McKennan's E. H. Harriman, vol. i, p. 302. 



THE NORTHERN SECURITIES COMPANY 93 

replied Schiff, "but we've got a lot of it. You secretly bought the 
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy and refused to give us a fair share; 
now we're going to see if we can't get a share by purchasing a control- 
ling interest in the Northern Pacific." 

Hill, after a brief talk, left the office, saying that he did not believe 
it could be done. He evidently feared, however, that it might be 
done, because on the following day, after making further investiga- 
tions, he went to Robert Bacon, . . . told him that the situation 
was critical, and suggested that it might be well to cable J. Pierpont 
Morgan, ... for authority to buy at least 150,000 shares of 
Northern Pacific stock, preferably the common. . . . The cable- 
gram was sent to Morgan after the close of the Stock Exchange, 
Saturday, May 4th. ^ 

When Mr. Morgan received the cable he felt, as he afterward 
stated, that something must have happened: 

"Somebody must have sold. I knew where certain stocks 
were and I figured it up. I feel bound in all honour, when I 
reorganize a property, and am morally responsible for its 
management, to protect it, and I generally do protect it; so I 

i£. H. Harriman, vol. i, pp. 303-304. 

Mr. Pyle states in his interesting and "authorized" Life of James J. Hill, vol. ii, 
pp. 138-139. that: 

The Union Pacific people knew what was in the wind, for Mr. Hill had advised 
them of it himself. He wrote to one of those interested with him in the negotiations, 
May 16, 1901: "So as to remove any ground for the charge that we were working 
secretly to acquire the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, I said to [one of the representa- 
tives of the Union Pacific interests] in January that if he at any time heard that we 
were conferring with the 'Q' board of directors looking to the joint acquisition of that 
property, I wanted to be the first one to tell him that we intended to take up the 
matter seriously. In April, after Mr. Morgan had gone abroad and the Burlington 
matter was taking definite shape, I again told him that matters were progressing 
toward a close. He said he should have bought Burlington in the market and saved 
the advance." Mr. Hill replied that the other side had tried that method them- 
selves, and "found themselves up against a stone wall," consisting of the great body 
of small shareholders, "who would not even give him one director, and who resented 
his attempt to buy into their company." "I told him our plan was an open and fair 
attempt to agree with the 'Q' board, as the only means of gaining control of that 
property." 
Upon this statement Mr. Kennan (vol. i, p. 296) thus comments: 

If the unnamed person to whom Mr. Hill made this statement was really a rep- 
resentative of Union Pacific interests, he did not pass on the information to the men 
who were actively in control of Union Pacific affairs, namely, Harriman and Schiff. 
Neither of these gentlemen had any knowledge of the Hill-Morgan negotiations 
until some time in March, 1901. 

In a conversation, Mr. Pyle has recently confirmed the statement that the informa- 
tion was given, as he stated in his life of Mr. Hill. 



94 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

made up my mind that It would be desirable to buy 150,000 
shares of stock . . . and with that I knew we had a ma- 
jority of common stock. 

The views of Messrs. Hill and Morgan have been given in 
their own language. Mr. Harriman should be heard in his own 
behalf: 

On the morning of Saturday, May 4th, I was at home, ill. We had 
somewhat over ^42,000,000 of the preferred shares of the Northern 
Pacific, or a clear majority of that issue, and somewhat over 
137,000,000 of the common shares, which lacked being a majority of 
the common by about 40,000 shares. But we had a majority of the 
entire capital stock . . . and I had been competently advised, 
and was convinced, that this holding was sufficient to enable us to 
control the Company. Nevertheless, the fact that the Northern Paci- 
fic could, on the ist of January following, retire the preferred shares, 
of which we had a majority, bothered me somewhat, and I felt that 
we ought not to leave open to them any chance of retiring our pre- 
ferred stock and leaving us with a minority interest in the common 
stock, or involving us in litigation about it.^ 

Mr. Harriman therefore called up a partner of Kuhn, Loeb 
& Company and ordered the purchase of 40,000 shares. 

Mr. Schiff was at the Synagogue, and he instructed his 
partner "not to execute the order," and that "he [Schiff] 
would be responsible."^ If Mr. Harriman had not been ill, or 
if Mr. Schiff had not been at the Synagogue . . . 

Saturday morning passed, and with the morning, the golden 
opportunity. The Stock Exchange had closed at noon. On 
Sunday, the 5th, Mr. Bacon received the desired authority 
by cable from» Mr. Morgan. On Monday morning the Morgan 
forces "took the field." As Mr. Kennan says: "With the 
reopening of the Stock Exchange, Monday morning, their 
brokers swarmed over the floor, bidding eagerly for Northern 
Pacific common, and taking all that could be had at prices that 
advanced steadily from no to 130. Tuesday they continued 
this aggressive buying, and ran the price of the common up to 

^Briefjor appellant Great Northern Railway Company, p. 35. 
2£. H. Harriman, vol. i, p. 305. 
^Ibid., p. 306, 



THE NORTHERN SECURITIES COMPANY 95 

149! — an advance of nearly forty points in two business days. 
[Commercial ^ Financial Chronicle^ May i8y igoi.\ But they 
attained their object. Before Tuesday night they were in 
possession of the 150,000 shares that Morgan had authorized 
them to buy. With this addition to their holdings, the Morgan- 
Hill interests had something like 30,000 shares more of the com- 
mon than they needed."^ 
They had, in common parlance, the whip hand.^ 
Why this anxiety to hold a majority of the common, when all 
stockholders could vote, and preferred stock is, as the name 
indicates, ordinarily more desirable? The reason is simple. 
It was a temporary issue, for a temporary purpose.^ It 
could, therefore, be retired.^ Upon retirement of the pre- 



^E. H. Harriman, vol. i, pp. 307-308. 

"In an interesting letter of December 29, 1922, Mr. Kennan gives some personal 
information regarding the relations of the participants in the struggle which he has so 
admirably portrayed. 

"My recollection is that Mr. Harriman and Mr. SchifF always regarded Robert 
Bacon with respect and esteem, even although their business interests often conflicted. 
I remember distinctly that Mr. Schiff, shortly before his death, spoke to me with 
cordial appreciation of Mr. Bacon's behaviour during the struggle for control of the 
Burlington, and Northern Pacific panic. He asked me also, I remember, to omit, if 
I could, some unfavourable comments on the firm which I had quoted from Evarts — 
and I did omit them. Morgan & Co. had defeated his and Harriman's plans, but he 
didn't want to see them treated with what he thought was injustice. 
"Most of Mr. Harriman's letters and papers were destroyed in the Equitable Build- 
ing fire, but in those that survived I did not find any unkind references to Morgan, 
Bacon, Hill, or any of the other big men who opposed him. His relations with them 
seem to have been always pleasant, and on the day of the Northern Pacific panic, 
when the outcome of the tremendous struggle for control of that road was still in 
doubt, Dr. Henry S. Pritchett found Harriman and Hill together, in Harriman's 
office, chatting amicably about ;Other things! Bitterness and rancour seem to be 
characteristic only of petty minds." 

'In the course of the hearings in the Northern Securities Case Mr. Morgan said: 

"It was always considered, and always known, by everybody connected with 
the Northern Pacific, that the amount of preferred stock which was outstanding was 
simply a temporary loan until we should issue the common stock at par and take it 
up, and, consequently, in dealing with the question, the question simply was when 
the directors of the Northern Pacific should decide that it was expedient to do it.'' 
Brief for Appellant Great Northern Railway Company, p. 21. 

*Mr. Charles Steele, a partner of J. Pierpont Morgan & Company, and who was 
associated with Mr. Bacon in this entire transaction, said in his testimony of the case: 
"It has been intended from the time of the reorganization to retire the preferred 
stock as soon as the company became financially able to do so. The voting trust 
by its terms continued until January, 1902, but in the fall of 1900 the company had 
become very prosperous; it was very strong, and it was deemed by the voting trustees 



96 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

ferred, Mr. Harriman would receive common stock, but he 
would* only be able to vote it and reorganize the Board of 
Directors after the Annual Meeting of the Stockholders in 
October, and the Board of Directors could postpone the annual 
meeting. It did. In the meantime, many things could hap- 
pen. Mr. Morgan and Mr. Hill decided to protect their in- 
terests by forming a securities company against "raiding," 
which is the technical word for Mr. Harriman's attempt. To 
this company the stockholders of the Great Northern and 
Northern Pacific could sell their stock and receive stock of the 
new concern in return. It would not be a railroad, it would 
be an investment company. Mr. Harriman concluded, 
instead of struggling further for control, to content himself 
with representation in the Directorate of the Northern Pacific 
and the Burlington. The investment company was formed 
by general consent. 

Mr. Harriman agreed to sell his Northern Pacific stock to the 
new company and to receive its stock in return. There were 
to be two bites to the cherry. 

On November 13th, Mr. Harriman sold his preferred and 
common stock to J. P. Morgan & Company at an agreed 
price. The Northern Securities Company, incorporated the 
same November 13th, agreed to take this stock from the Mor- 
gans at the same price, and to issue stock of the new company 
to Mr. Harriman. It was done. 

This turn of affairs did not come about by itself. A panic 
in Wall Street had inclined the principals in the struggle to 
compromise. Northern Pacific stock had been bought; it 
had not been delivered. It had been sold "short" — that is, 
the broker sold Northern Pacific stock which did not belong to 
him, and which he did not possess, in the expectation of pro- 
curing it somewhere, somehow, at a lower price, at the time of 
delivery agreed upon. 

Wednesday, May 8th, opened with great uneasiness; by noon 

that they had fulfilled the purpose of their trust, and that they could properly dissolve 
the voting trust on the first day of January following, which was 1901. The only 
uncompleted object of the reorganization was the retirement of the preferred stock 
and they intended at the time that the voting trusfwas dissolved that the preferred 
stock should be retired on the first of January, 1902, that beiiig the first date when it 
could be retired under the provisions of the charter, by-laws, and stock certificates." 
£. //. Harriman, vol. I, p. 11. 



THE NORTHERN SECURITIES COMPANY 97 

it was evident that trouble was impending. The next day, 
Thursday, the 9th, the storm broke. ^ Because of the demand 
for stock of the Northern Pacific, the common rose to 1 1,000 
a share. This affected the whole market. Other standard 
stocks fell to half their ordinary value. The brokers who dealt 
in Northern Pacific saw themselves ruined for they could neither 
procure the stock nor pay the price if procurable. Holders of 
other stocks suffered, at least temporarily. Wall Street was in 
a ferment. Something had to be done. Mr. Schiff, acting for 
Mr. Harriman, and Mr. Bacon, acting for Mr. Morgan, agreed 
that the brokers who had sold Northern Pacific "short" should 
settle with Messrs. Harriman and Morgan at $150 per share. 
This allayed the immediate apprehension and tension of these 
brokers. An agreement Hmited to Northern Pacific stock was 
not sufficient. Holders of standard stocks had been affected 
by the events of the past few days. A contest between Messrs. 
Harriman and Morgan for control of the Northern Pacific 
involving a half interest in the Burlington would seriously 
affect the stock of the Great Northern. ^ It was there- 
fore not only in the interest of Messrs. Harriman and 
Morgan, but also of Mr. Hill, that a working agreement 
should be reached. It was also in the interest of the public, 
for in these days the earnings of the poor as well as the 
rich are invested in stock, and the stockholders of small 
amounts are scattered throughout the length and breadth of 
the land. It was therefore agreed that there should be no 
contest over the election of members to the future board of 
the Northern Pacific. It was further decided not to wait until 
the annual meeting, but to take steps at once. It was pro- 
posed that Mr. Morgan should choose the members. Mr. 
Bacon would only consent to this upon the clear and definite 
understanding that Mr. Morgan should be free and untrammel- 
led in his choice. This was agreed to; Mr. Morgan accepted. 



^For a very interesting account of this episode, see Mr. Kennan's Life of Mr. Harri- 
man, vol. i, pp. 313 et seq. 

^In his testimony Mr. Hill said: "It was a question whether we controlled our prop- 
erty or whether the Union Pacific controlled it through the Burlington & Northern 
Pacific. If that stock had not been redeemed, and the Union Pacific controlled the 
Northern Pacific and half of the Burlington, they would very soon have controlled the 
Great Northern." Brief Jor Appellant Great Northern Railway Company, p. 34. 



98 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

A statement of the agreement was made public with quieting 
effects. Mr. Morgan advised some of the members of the 
Directorate to withdraw at once. This they did. Mr. 
Morgan was thus able to reorganize the Board before the annual 
meeting, and the element of uncertainty and the fear of a 
contest were eliminated. Then there was the matter of the 
retirement of the preferred stock. Messrs. Harriman and 
Morgan had obtained from competent counsel the opinions 
they wanted, but Htigation confronted the principals even if 
they were sure of their legal rights and eventual triumph. 
By common consent the reorganized Board voted the retire- 
ment of the preferred stock at its meeting of November 13th, 
to take effect on January i, 1902, and by like consent the 
annual meeting was postponed. By common consent Messrs. 
Harriman, Hill, and Morgan agreed to sell their holdings of 
Great Northern and Northern Pacific stock to an investment 
company to be organized, and which was actually incorporated 
in New Jersey on November 13, 1901, under the name of the 
Northern Securities Company. 

A fundamental principle of the transaction was equality 
of treatment of all stockholders. All holders who might care 
to sell their stock in these companies to the Investment Com- 
pany were to receive, and actually did recieve, the same price 
per share, $180 for Great Northern, I115 for Northern Pacific. 
In the end, 76 per cent, of the Great Northern was sold at this 
rate to the new company, although it was selling for ^200 on the 
market; 96 per cent, of the Northern Pacific was sold to the 
Northern Securities Company. This was contrary to the 
anticipations of Messrs. Hill and Morgan, who figured on less 
than a majority. This mark of confidence in their character 
and ability was doubtless pleasing although far from unusual. 
Mr. Hill had long planned an investment company for the 
Great Northern and the holdings of its stockholders in the 
Northern Pacific in order to see to it that the policy which had 
made the Great Northern System so successful in the past 
should be continued in the future. Mr. Morgan had in mind 
a similar company for the Northern Pacific and for like reasons. 
The events of the past few months caused them to take early 
action and to create a single holding company. Mr. Hill had 
repeatedly stated the reasons for his action in a statement to 



THE NORTHERN SECURITIES COMPANY 99 

the press, in private personal letters, and In sworn testimony. 
Mr. Morgan has likewise given his reasons. Both expressly 
denied any purpose on their part to restrain trade or to stifle 
competition. Mr. Hill was elected president of the Northern 
Securities Company. In this capacity he issued a statement 
explaining the organization of the company, announced that 
the three railroads would continue to be operated separately, 
and asked fair play and time within which to prove that the 
establishment of the Northern Securities Company was in the 
public good. 

Time was not to be granted. Suit was brought in the Cir- 
cuit Court for the District of Minnesota by the United States 
against the Northern Securities Company, a corporation of 
New Jersey; the Great Northern Railway Company, a corpora- 
tion of Minnesota; the Northern Pacific Railway Company, 
a corporation of Wisconsin; James J. Hill, a citizen of Minne- 
sota; and William P. Clough, D. Willis James, John S. Kennedy, 
J. Pierpont Morgan, Robert Bacon, George F. Baker, and 
Daniel S. Lamont, citizens of New York, to procure the dissolu- 
tion of the Securities Company. 

The suit was based upon the Anti-Trust Act of 1890.^ The 
first section declared illegal "every contract, combination in 
the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of 
trade or commerce among the several States or with foreign 
nations." The second section made it a misdemeanour for any 
person to "monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine 
or conspire with any other person or persons to monopolize 
any part of the trade or commerce among the several States 
or with foreign nations." 

The Government by its bill challenged the right of the 
Northern Securities Company to hold and own the stock in the 
two railroads. 

The case was decided against the company, and the judg- 
ment of the Circuit Court- was affirmed on appeal to the 
Supreme Court of the United States by five judges for and four 
judges against confirmation.^ 



^United States Statutes at Large, vol. xxvi (i?9i), p. 209. 

^United States v. Northern Securities Company (1903), iio Federaf Reporter, 721. 

^Northern Securities Company v. United States (1904), 193 United States Reports, 197. 



loo ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

In the opinion of the majority, and therefore in the judgment 
of the Supreme Court, the Northern Securities Company was 
an illegal combination, and should be and was dissolved. The 
divergent views of the members of that august tribunal show 
the difficulty of the case and the closeness of the decision. 
However, the Supreme Court is always right, because, as the 
late Mr. Justice Brewer was wont to say, "it has the last guess." 

The Court of last resort had spoken, and there was nothing 
to do but to comply. On March 22, 1904, eight days after the 
decision of the Supreme Court, the Directors of the Securities 
Company met in New York and decided that it was necessary, 
in order to carry out the decision of the Court, to reduce the capi- 
tal stock of the company and to distribute to its shareholders 
the shares of stock which it possessed of the two railroads. 

To Mr. Harriman the method of distribution was unsatis- 
factory. He insisted that the Northern Pacific stock which 
he had transferred to the company should be returned. If 
this were done, he would control the Northern Pacific Railway 
Company in the future; if shares of Northern Pacific and of the 
Great Northern were issued, he would lose control of the 
Northern Pacific Company. He therefore filed a bill in the 
Circuit Court of the United States for the District of New 
Jersey to enjoin the Northern Securities Company from dis- 
tributing the shares of the Northern Securities as proposed. 
The injunction was granted, but reversed in the Court of 
Appeals on the ground that the stocks of the Northern Pacific 
and of the Great Northern had been sold not merely deposited 
with the Securities Company; that title to the stock had there- 
fore passed to the Securities Company, and that Mr. Harriman 
was only entitled to the distribution of the stock of the North- 
ern Securities authorized by the company. 

Proverbially, we cannot see the forest for the trees. Partici- 
pants in the case, it is to be feared, have their feet entangled in 
the details. In any event, they lack perspective. The judg- 
ment of the onlooker is often preferred. Perhaps it may be 
so in this case. And it would be difficult to find greater knowl- 
edge of the subject, combined with poise and balance, than 
pervades the History of the Northern Securities Case^ written 
by Dr. Balthasar Henry Meyer, at present a member of the 
Interstate Commerce Commission of the United States. 



THE NORTHERN SECURITIES COMPANY loi 

Competition as a regulative principle of railways and as a force 
which will maintain proper relations between the railways themselves 
and the railways and the public has failed in every country of the 
world where it has been given a trial. . . . The Great Northern 
and Northern Pacific railways are parallel and competing in so far as 
physical location is concerned, and with respect to a relatively small 
part of their interstate traffic. They are not, and have not been, 
competitive with respect to any but an inappreciable part of their 
total traffic. . . . 

It was assumed that competition had been stifled without first 
asking the question whether competition had actually existed; and 
whether, if competition could be perpetuated, the public would profit 
by it, . . . This undiscriminating opposition to all forms of open 
concerted action on the part of the railways is in my mind the greatest 
single blunder in our public policy toward railways. ... I also 
wish to repeat . . . that I regard the application to railways of 
the Sherman anti-trust law of 1890 as one of the gravest errors in our 
legislative history. It is demonstrable that if railway companies had 
been permitted to cooperate with one another under the supervision 
of competent public authority . . . the railway situation in the 
United States would to-day be appreciably better than it is. . . . 
The American public seems to be unwilling to admit that agreements 
will and must exist, and that it has a choice between regulated legal 
agreements and unregulated extra-legal agreements. We should 
have cast away more than fifty years ago the impossible doctrine of 
protection of the public by railway competition.^ 



^History of the Northern Securities Case (1906), pp. 253-254, 305-306. 

The failure of "competition as a regulative principle" gives added interest to Mr. 
Hill's suggestion based upon the experience of a life-time. 

"His idea was 'competition by groups.' This meant that each integral geo- 
graphical and commercial section of the country, comprising states and parts of 
states bound together intrinsically by situation, industrial interest, and relations to 
markets, should have its own independent system of railroad lines working either 
under one ownership or in complete community of interest. These groups of states 
or sections, these systems of railroads naturally concreted, will compete for business. 
It will be a competition between homogeneous productive areas, seaports, great 
through routes, and widely separated sources of supply. The evolution of the rail- 
road interest of this country is the living proof that Mr. Hill's view was scientific 
as well as practical. He said: 'Our Company will continue to maintain a conserva- 
tive and firm position, having proper regard for the revenue of other lines without 
any disposition on our part to interfere with their local rate at intermediate points.' 
He felt all the delight of a successful general in his ability to dispose of any kind of 
competition that might wander his way and try a tilt with him." Pyle's Life of 
James J. Hill, vol. ii, p. 342. 



I02 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

What was the outcome of years of intellectual effort, of the 
expenditure of vast sums of money involved in the making and 
unmaking of the Northern Securities Company? The return 
to the early days of May, 1901, when Mr, Hill conferred with 
Mr. Bacon, and Mr. Bacon and Mr. Steele of J. Pierpont 
Morgan & Company blocked the effort of Mr. Harriman and 
Mr. Schiff to purchase the necessary stock on the market to 
obtain control of the Northern Pacific Railway. 

Physically, the strain on Mr. Bacon had injured his health. 
Upon his physician's advice he took a year's leave of absence, 
and at its expiration withdrew from J. Pierpont Morgan & 
Company, a well man with his future before him — a future 
made possible by "long experience, wide culture, sound judg- 
ment, and perfect tact." 



PART IV 

THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

"/ have done the state some service!'' 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Assistant Secretary 

The two years of freedom from care and worry, of leisure 
and of travel, which followed the withdrawal from active 
business in 1903, restored Mr. Bacon's health and made it 
possible for him to devote himself to a career of public useful- 
ness. He was always anxious to serve the public. He looked 
upon public service as a duty to be performed, not as an 
opportunity to be courted, and he felt that the call should be 
clear and unmistakable. 

The summer of 1905 brought to Mr. Bacon this call and this 
opportunity. On the 5th day of September, 1905, when he 
accepted the post of Assistant Secretary of State, he renounced 
his personal preference for private life, offering whatever of 
ability he had to his country. Within fourteen years his 
public career began and ended, and upon his activity in these 
years Mr. Bacon's claim to public remembrance must chiefly 
rest. 

To him they were busy years; to the world, they were event- 
ful years. He met each changing issue face to face. He did 
the Httle things that came to him faithfully. He did the 
larger things with a sense of their largeness. He did all things 
with a great devotion. As Assistant Secretary of State, as 
Secretary of State, as Ambassador to France, and as a pioneer 
for preparedness for the war with Germany, which instinctively 
he felt was our war, and later, "somewhere in France," as an 
ofiicer of the American Army, he showed in each capacity the 
same single consecration to duty; the same deep sense of 
responsibility. Officers of high rank with whom he served; 
civilians in almost every walk of life with whom he came into 
contact, many of whom he did not know, felt and even ex- 
pressed the effect of his example — of his simple, sincere devotion 
to the cause in which his heart had enlisted. To him, America 
was indeed first, but it was an America united and strong at 

10s 



io6 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

home in order to be just and generous abroad. For this 
America he hved; for this America he died. 

On July 5, 1905, Mr. EHhu Root was offered the Secretary- 
ship of State by President Roosevelt, to succeed Mr. John 
Hay, who had just died after months of failing health. Mr. 
Root accepted the post because he could not well refuse the 
call to duty from one in whose cabinet he had served as 
Secretary of War, and because he believed that Mr. Hay's 
policies, which he approved, and which in many instances as 
Secretary of State and Secretary of War they had planned and 
worked out together, should be carried out completely and 
sympathetically, in the spirit in which they were framed. Mr. 
Root wanted and required an assistant who would comprehend 
these plans, to whom their execution could be entrusted, and 
who could, in case of need, replace his chief in the Secretary- 
ship. Mr. Root believed Mr. Bacon to be the man for the 
place. He therefore offered it to the younger man, who gladly 
accepted it.^ 

The Assistant Secretary is an understudy. Mr. Bacon was 
that, and he never tried to play the leading part. He always 
tried to think out what Mr. Root would do or want to have 
done; therefore, he saw to it that the policy of the Department 
was Mr. Root's policy carried out to the minutest detail, as 
Mr. Root would have carried it out if, like Briareus of old, he 
had had a hundred hands. ^ The result was that Mr. Root 
associated Mr. Bacon with all the work of the Department, hav- 
ing no secrets from him, as Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig said 

'Mr. Bacon's admiration for Mr. Root began with the first days of his Assistant 
Secretaryship. In a letter to his father under date of November 8, 1905, he thus con- 
fesses it, 

"I am in love with my new chief, Elihu Root, who is a tremendous worker and who has 
a fund of human sympathy and humour which make him one of the most attractive men 
I have ever met. It is a privilege to work with him in the public service." 

"During Mr. Root's absence in South America in the summer of 1906, negotiations as 
to the right of Americans to fish in Canadian and Newfoundland waters were partic- 
ularly troublesome. A modus vivendi acceptable to Great Britain and the United 
States on the one hand and the British colonists and American fishermen on the other 
had to be agreed to before the fishing season began. This Mr. Bacon succeeded in 
arranging, although he held up the final draft untU Mr. Root's return, so that it might 
have his approval. The modus vivendi of 1906 was fully approved by Mr. Root, and 
it proved so satisfactory that it was maintained with slight modifications until the 
arbitration of the North Atlantic Fisheries disputes at The Hague, in 1910, rendered a 
temporary adjustment unnecessary. 



THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY 107 

of Mr. Bacon on a later occasion. If Mr. Root had the mind 
to contrive, Mr. Bacon's was often the hand that executed. 

Mr. Bacon's sense of duty and devotion to it are made won- 
derfully clear by a little incident that happened while he was 
still Assistant Secretary. As a loyal son of Harvard, he was 
anxious to have Harvard win the boat race from Yale. He had 
rowed on the crew when in college; his sons followed in the 
wake of their father. It was natural, therefore, that Mr. 
Bacon should want to see Yale beaten at New London in 1906, 
when his three sons rowed in the three Harvard boats. He 
slipped away from the Department late one afternoon, after 
giving minute instructions as to what should be done during his 
proposed absence of one day. However, he turned up as usual 
the next morning at the Department, saying in a confused and 
abashed sort of way that when he got to Jersey City, he thought 
of the Department and the day's work and came back. He 
took the night train back from the halfway station, justifying 
himself to those who chaffed him, "I can't help it, I'm just 
made that way." 

Before assuming personal charge of the Department of 
State, Mr. Root took a survey of the outstanding business and 
made up his mind that certain things should be done during his 
tenure of office. A few words about some of them will show 
the training which Mr. Bacon received at the hands of a master, 
which fitted him for the highest posts at home and abroad. 

Since the independence of the United States, the rights of 
American fishermen in Canadian and Newfoundland waters had 
off and on perplexed American statesmen as well as American 
fishermen. The Fishery Article of the Treaty of 1783 was 
supposed to have settled this question upon a basis satisfactory 
alike to mother country and erstwhile colonies by recognizing 
the rights of Americans, as far as Great Britain was concerned, 
to continue to take fish wherever they had fished before the 
Revolution. But the War of 18 12 came, the British contend- 
ing that war abrogating treaties necessarily abrogated the 
Fisheries Article of the Treaty of Independence^; the Americans, 

Thus, Lord Bathurst, Secretary of War, and Acting Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs in the absence of Lord Castlereagh, said in behalf of Great Britain: "She knows 
of no exception to the rule, that all treaties are put an end to by a subsequent war," 
American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iv, p. 354. 



io8 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

that the Article was only suspended by and during the war. 
The Convention of 1818 between the two countries com- 
promised the differences to the detriment of the fishermen, in a 
text which has ever since been differently interpreted by the 
British and American fishermen and their respective coun- 
tries. 

Mr. Root knew from experience that disputes might at any 
moment arise over this subject; he also knew from experience 
that the worst time to settle a dispute is during the tension and 
bitter feeling caused by it. He proved in practice that the 
best way to settle a difficulty is to get rid of its cause before the 
concrete dispute has arisen or has assumed political importance. 
Therefore, before assuming office, he visited the fishing fields 
in person, and, availing himself of the first friction in the fishing 
waters to raise the entire question, brought it to arbitration at 
a time of peace and friendly feeling. The Convention of 1818, 
authoritatively interpreted by an Arbitral Tribunal at The 
Hague in the summer of 1910, defined the rights and duties of 
all parties, and the recommendations of the tribunal, based 
upon special clauses of the agreement submitting the case to 
arbitration, provided a method of adjusting future difficulties 
when and as they should arise. 

These great and beneficent results were accomplished by four 
men of intelligent good will: Mr. Root, assisted by Mr. Bacon 
on the one hand, and Sir Edward Grey, British Secretary of 
State for Foreign Affairs, and Mr. James Bryce, British Am- 
bassador to the United States, on the other. 

The final negotiations submitting the fisheries dispute 
to arbitration at The Hague, under Mr. Root's agreement, 
were conducted by Mr. Bryce and Mr. Bacon. Years after 
Viscount Bryce said of his relations with Mr. Bacon, "How 
often have I recalled the work we did together for furthering 
friendship and good relations between America and England, 
and how pleasant it was to deal with him. Such was the 
candour of his mind and the earnestness of his wish to settle 
everything in a way fair and just all round — the right temper 
in which a Secretary of State in any country should approach 
his tasks."* 



'Letter of Lord Bryce to Mrs. Bacon, shortly after Mr. Bacon's death. 



THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY 109 

During the entire period of Mr. Root's Secretaryship of 
State Mr. Bacon Uved in an atmosphere of Pan-Americanism — 
an Americanism so large and all-embracing as to include not 
merely the twenty-one Republics in esse, but also in posse, 
"The Lady of the Snows," the great dominion to the north 
of these United States. 

The American Republics were to hold the third Conference 
of the Americans at Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 1906. 
There was a proposal by Russia, the initiator of the Hague 
Conferences, to hold the second conference of the series at 
The Hague during the summer of 1906. The two conferences 
could not well be held during the course of the same summer. 

As the date of the meeting of the Pan-American Conference 
had "long been fixed" for the 21st day of July, 1906, Mr. Root 
felt that it should not be changed. He therefore proposed that 
the Conference at The Hague should be held at a later date. 
His suggestion was accepted, and that body met at The Hague 
in June of the following year. 

Mr. Root was desirous that all the American Republics 
should be invited to send representatives to the conference at 
The Hague. He entered into negotiations to that end. They 
were all invited and, with the exception of Costa Rica and 
Honduras, they all attended. It seemed to Mr. Root that the 
Conference could not claim to represent and to speak for the 
world unless the American Republics were present. In addi- 
tion, he wished to have them drawn into the world current, and 
become accustomed to play their part in international gather- 
ings, in the belief, justified by the event, that the intellectual 
benefits of such participation to the American States would 
outweigh any resultant drawbacks to the Conference through 
the increase of its numbers. It is thus apparent that Mr. Root's 
interest in the American Republics was not merely Platonic; 
it was very deep and very real. It was so deep and so real 
that he attended the Conference in person, and in the address 
which he delivered, as honorary president, he placed the 
relation of American States upon their right basis, proclaiming, 
as Mr. Bacon aptly called it, "the Root doctrine of kindly con- 
sideration and honourable obligation." 

Mr. Root could not very well attend the opening session of the 
American Conference at Rio and refuse invitations to visit at 



no ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

least some of the Latin-American Republics. He would 
have preferred to visit them all, but he was able to accept 
invitations only to those within the range of the traveller who 
visits the eastern coast and returns by the western coast of 
South America. During his absence from the United States 
(he left on July 4th and returned to Washington on September 
30th), Mr. Bacon was Acting Secretary of State. _ 

Before leaving, Mr. Root prepared and left with President 
Roosevelt an account of business in the Department so that 
he might be informed of pending questions. Foreign affairs 
are and always have been under the special control of the 
President, who may, if he chooses, direct the policy of the 
country. The other Departments have laws for their guidance, 
as is possible in domestic matters; but foreign affairs are, as it 
were, a law unto themselves. They cannot be foreseen; they 
may arise unexpectedly, and must at all times be handled with 
tact and discretion. A strong Secretary of State runs his 
Department, but a dominating President may, if he is so 
minded, be his own Secretary of Foreign Affairs. This situa- 
tion is recognized in practice, in that the President, not the 
Secretary of State, presents the report to Congress on foreign 
affairs while the other members of the Cabinet submit their 
annual reports directly to the Congress. 

President Roosevelt and Secretary Root were both strong 
men, but they worked in harmony. It was obvious that it 
would be agreeable to the President to discuss foreign affairs 
with his classmate and lifelong friend, Robert Bacon. It was 
also clear that Mr. Root wanted him to do so, for he ended his 
report to the President with the statement, "whatever ques- 
tion comes up, you will find Bacon thoroughly cognizant of it 
and possessed of sound judgment upon it." 

THE PEACE OF THE "mARBLEHEAD" 

The English poet, Cowper, has a line or two in The Task^ 
which, unfortunately, applies to the five Republics of Central 
America: 

"Mountains interposed 
Make enemies of nations who had else 
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one." 



THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY in 

Shortly before the departure of Mr. Root for South America, 
trouble broke out in Central America. One after another of 
the Central American Republics became so involved that a war 
affecting all of them seemed imminent. The crisis came during 
Mr. Root's absence, when Mr. Bacon was Acting Secretary, 
and it devolved upon him to suggest such action to the Presi- 
dent of the United States as would not only prevent the war 
from spreading — for war it was — but bring the countries in 
conflict together and arrange a peace satisfactory to them and 
in the interest of every one of the Central American States. 
This Mr. Bacon succeeded in doing. 

The facts of the case are few and simple. In May of 1906 
a revolt broke out in Guatemala against the government of its 
President. This would seem to be a matter solely for the en- 
lightened or misguided patriots of Guatemala. A glance at 
the map, however, shows how easily a rebellion can be aided 
from the border of a neighbouring state. San Salvador was 
accused of helping the rebels, and as it is so much easier to 
strike a blow than to ascertain truth and act wisely and justly, 
war resulted between the two neighbours. Guatemala has 
another neighbour on the south — Honduras — and nothing was 
more natural or easier than to embroil Honduras in the struggle. 
This was done by a party of Guatemalans who invaded Hon- 
duras. The result was that Guatemala found itself at fisti- 
cuffs with San Salvador and Honduras. 

Mr. Bacon wisely felt that the Government of the United 
States should not alone extend its good offices; that Mexico 
should also be urged to do so. His view was that the inter- 
vention of the United States might be looked upon with suspi- 
cion, which the cooperation of Mexico would tend to avert. 
The American Ambassador to Mexico was instructed to invite 
President Diaz to cooperate. He agreed, and the good offices 
of President Roosevelt and President Diaz were accepted by 
the belligerents on July i6th. 

Two days later an armistice was declared, and under the 
personal guidance of the American and Mexican ministers in 
Central America representatives of the jarring factions were 
got aboard the Marblehead^ an American cruiser,"^hich 
promptly steamed beyond the three-mile line so as to-'-be on the 
high seas. Whether the calm of the ocean, or the sweet 



112 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

reasonableness of peace dawned upon the representatives, or 
whether jfinally they were overcome by mal de mer, is a matter 
of no moment. The fact is that on the 20th an agreement 
was reached and signed by Guatemala, San Salvador, and 
Honduras, providing for the establishment of peace, the with- 
drawal of military forces within three days, an exchange of 
prisoners, the negotiation within two months of a treaty of 
friendship, commerce, and navigation, and finally the reference 
of future differences to arbitration by the presidents of the 
United States and Mexico. 

This agreement had the moral sanction of Costa Rica and 
Nicaragua.^ 

President Roosevelt voiced his appreciation in a very per- 
sonal and characteristic note: 

Oyster Bay, N. Y. 

T^ t> July 2i> 1906. 

Dear Bob: 

. . . Let me repeat, my dear fellow, the congratulations I have 
wired you on the way you have handled this Central American busi- 
ness — and for the matter of that, the way you are handling all the busi- 
ness of the State Department. . . . 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt.^ 

^The above account is taken, with slight modifications, from an editorial comment 
contributed by J. B. Scott, to the American "Journal oj International Law, vol. i, 1907, 
p. 141, which had the good fortune to be read and approved by Mr. Bacon, in advance 
of its publication. 

^As indicating the relations between the President and the Acting Secretary of 
State, and the free and easy way in which President Roosevelt communicated with his 
colleagues, which recalls the personal touch of George Canning, the following endorse- 
ment to an official paper relating to the Algeciras Conference of 1906 may be instanced: 

"The White House, 
Washington, 
June 28, 1906. 
"My dear Mr. Secretary. 

I send you the .accompanying note from Senator Hale about the Algeciras Treaty, 
and invite your attention to the endorsement thereon in the President's handwriting. 

Very truly yours, 
Wm. Loeb, Jr. 
Secretary to the President." 
Hon. Robert Bacon, 

Acting Secretary of State. 
Enclosure. 
The enclosure in question was: "Referred to Robert Bacon for his profane considera- 
tion, f . R." 



THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY 113 

INTERVENTION OF THE UNITED STATES IN CUBA, I906 

While Mr. Bacon was Acting Secretary of State, the most 
serious problem which arose was the insurrection in Cuba. 
Difficulties had long been developing there, owing to intense 
political passion and keen personal ambition. Individual 
armed encounters had occurred, and in August, 1906, open 
revolt began against the Government of President Palma. 

In that month a small armed force took the field, and up- 
risings immediately followed throughout the country, led by 
prominent leaders disaffected with the Government. The 
power of this irregular force to do damage was incalculable. 
The greater part of the wealth of Cuba lies in its sugar planta- 
tions and sugar mills, most of which are owned by foreign 
capital, and the flaring of a few matches could in a short time 
have destroyed property to the value of millions of dollars. 

The Government of Cuba found itself entirely unprepared. 
It had spent its funds for education rather than for military 
force. Its artillery and rural guard were comparatively small 
organizations, and so scattered as to be unable to cope with 
the insurrection. Desperate efforts were made to organize a 
militia, but with unsatisfactory results. 

By the beginning of September, the Cuban Government 
realized its helplessness and applied to the United States 
Government for American intervention, and President Palma 
announced his irrevocable intention to resign his office in order 
to save his country from complete anarchy. The State 
Department, under Mr. Bacon's direction, did everything in 
its power to discourage the request, but the pleas of the Cuban 
Government continued. On September 14, 1906, President 
Roosevelt sent an official letter to Sr. Quesada, the Cuban 
Minister in Washington, in which he pointed out the disaster 
imminent in Cuba, adjured all Cuban patriots to band together 
and rescue the island from the anarchy of civil war; referred 
to his duties under the Piatt Amendment^, and announced that 

^The Piatt Amendment is an attempt on the part of the United States and of Cuba 
to maintain the independence of the latter Republic against invasion from without as 
well as within. It consists of eight articles, which, in Secretary Root's opinion, would 
justify the United States in withdrawing the army of occupation from Cuba, and in 
turning that devoted little country over to its own people. 

Secretary Root's conditions formed Articles I, II, III, IV, and VII; Major General 



114 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

he would send to Havana the Secretary of War, Mr. Taft, and 
the Assistant Secretary of State, Mr. Bacon, as special rep- 
resentatives of the American Government, to render all pos- 
sible aid toward securing peace. 

Although newspaper reports in the United States indicated 
that matters were bad, the real seriousness of the situation was 
not understood by the general public. It was, however, clear 
to Mr. Bacon, who said on September i6th, before starting for 
Cuba, "The situation in Cuba is extremely serious. The 
Cuban Government has been on its knees for a week asking for 
our intervention." He knew that the Government controlled 
little more than the larger towns and that most of the country 
districts were in the hands of the rebels. The need for an 
immediate departure of a peace commission was urgent, and it 
left Washington the afternoon of the same day. The party 
consisted of Secretary Taft, Mr. Bacon, Mr. Edwin V. Mor- 
gan, the American Minister to Cuba; Captain Frank McCoy, 
U. S. A.; Mr. F. S. Cairns of the Philippine Customs Service; 
Mr. Otto Schoenrich, and several clerks. Practically the entire 
railroad trip was one long conference, and at various stations 
telegrams were delivered showing the status in Cuba. It was 
apparent that the contending forces were tacitly observing a 

Leonard Wood's provision concerning sanitation forms Article V, and Article VI, 
concerning the Isle of Pines, and Article VIII, requiring further assurance by treaty, 
were inserted by the Senate Committee on Cuoan Relations, of which Senator Orville 
H. Piatt was chairman. 

It is called the "Piatt Amendment" after Senator Piatt, who, at the request of 
President McKinley and Secretary Root, proposed the amendment to the Army 
Appropriation Bill of 1901, when it was under consideration in the Senate. 

By Article II of the Amendment it is provided: 
That said government [of Cuba] shall not assume or contract any public debt, to 

pay the interest upon which, and to make reasonable sinking-fund provision for the 

ultimate discharge of which, the ordinary revenues of the island, after defraying the 

current expenses of government, shall be inadequate. 

By Article III, 
That the government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the 

right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance 

of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, 
' and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of 

Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the Government 

of Cuba. 

The Amendment as a whole was adopted by the Constitutional Convention of 
Cuba of 1 901. It is the sole subject-matter of the Treaty of May 22, 1903, between the 
free, sovereign, and independent republics of Cuba and the United States. Its purpose 
is to preserve, not to menace the independence of Cuba, much less to destroy it. 



THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY n^ 

truce pending the arrival of the American commissioners. At 
Tampa they boarded a tug which carried them to the cruiser 
Des Moines, and early Wednesday morning, September 19th, 
the Commission arrived in Havana. 

Secretary Taft and Mr. Bacon immediately had conferences 
with the Cuban Secretary of State and with President Palma. 
Havana was besieged, the Government forces holding only 
the city proper and the railroads leading out of it. Neverthe- 
less, Mr. Taft and Mr. Bacon accepted the invitation of the 
American Minister, Mr. Morgan, to live at his residence in 
Marianao, about nine miles from the city. The town of 
Marianao was in the neutral zone, between the Government 
and the insurgent lines, the insurgent outposts being about one 
thousand yards away. Messrs. Taft, Bacon, McCoy, and 
Schoenrich were lodged at the Minister's house, the clerks in a 
boarding house near by. If an attack had been made on the 
house the whole party could have been overwhelmed, but 
apparently no one gave a thought to this phase of the situa- 
tion. 

Long and varied conferences ensued with leaders of both 
factions in an attempt to find a basis of compromise. Mr. Taft 
and Mr. Bacon closely followed the opinions expressed and 
asked many questions. There were also conferences with the 
insurgents in the field. The conferences continued day after 
day, in the forenoon, afternoon, and evening. At meal times 
the developments of the day were discussed. The opinions of 
Mr. Taft and Mr. Bacon were inspired by a desire to preserve 
intact the good name of the United States and to render un- 
selfish assistance to its neighbours. Yet they were not blind to 
the dangers which confronted them. Although Mexico was 
then at peace, and in a state of prosperity, Mr. Taft said one 
evening in the course of conversation: "I fear that in twenty- 
five years we may be obliged to govern not only the Philippines 
and Cuba, but Mexico as well." Mr. Bacon sighed but made 
no answer. 

Long cablegrams in code went daily between President 
Roosevelt and Mr. Taft, and were submitted to and considered 
by Mr. Bacon. 

After a few days Mr. Taft and Mr. Bacon realized that it 
would be more convenient to continue holding the conferences 



ii6 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

in the city. Accordingly, they went by automobile from 
Marianao to Havana every morning, spent the day at the 
American Legation in Havana, and returned to Marianao in the 
evening. Their entry into the city in the morning was gen- 
erally without incident. As they left at night they were always 
challenged by sentries two or three times when passing through 
the lines. Neither guards nor arms were carried, although 
occasionally rumours made the members of the commission 
realize that they were living on a volcano. 

One evening, as they were about to leave the Legation for 
Marianao, two prominent Liberals came to them and reported 
on "trustworthy information" that Mr. Taft and Mr. Bacon 
were to be ambushed and attacked in the evening, and urged 
them for safety's sake to remain in the city. Mr. Taft turned 
to Mr. Bacon and said, "Well, Bacon?", to which Mr. Bacon 
answered without hesitation, "Go ahead." "I think so, too," 
said Mr. Taft. "If anything has to come it may as well come 
now. We must take the risk." The night was as black as 
ink, but beyond challenges by the sentries, the return trip was 
made without incident. 

In the same high spirit, Mr. Taft proposed that Mrs. Taft 
and Mrs. Bacon should be sent for, just to show, among other 
reasons, that the American Mission was not afraid. They 
started immediately, but arrived only two days before the 
departure of Mr. Taft and Mr. Bacon from Cuba. 

The report of the Peace Commission, published in the Report 
of the Secretary of War for the year 1906, tells the story of the 
negotiations. Although the situation changed from hour to 
hour, the general plan decided upon contemplated the resigna- 
tions of the Vice-President, senators and representatives, 
governors and provincial councilmen elected at the elections 
of December, 1905; the surrender of arms by the insurgents; the 
constitution of a commission for the purpose of drafting laws 
most urgently needed; and the holding of elections under the 
provisions of an electoral law to be drafted by such commission. 

The efforts which the Commissioners made to have the 
compromise accepted by all parties were without avail. Presi- 
dent Palma refused to serve with those who had attacked and 
offended him so deeply, and the Moderate Party of which he 
was the head at first would hear of no other President. The 



THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY 117 

Liberals, on the other hand, insisted upon the removal of the 
officers whom they considered to have been illegally elected. 
In view of the deadlock, intervention began to be considered 
seriously, although with great reluctance, especially on the 
part of Mr. Bacon. One evening Mr. Taft remarked, "Well, 
Bacon, I am ready to try intervention if you agree." Mr. 
Bacon frowned and looked worried. Clearly he would 
have preferred to uphold the Government, permitting the 
malcontents to assert their rights at a future election. Such a 
course, however, involved the risk of precipitating a civil war. 

The fateful night of September 28th was at hand. Presi- 
dent Palma and his Cabinet resigned, the Cuban Congress 
dissolved without electing a successor, and President Palma 
called on the Peace Commission to designate a responsible 
person to whom he could turn over the national funds. Secre- 
tary Taft accordingly issued a proclamation dated September 
29, 1906, estabHshing the Provisional Government of Cuba by 
the United States and proclaiming himself Provisional Gover- 
nor. The proclamation was brief but involved hours of con- 
ference between Mr. Taft, Mr. Bacon, and U. S. Consul General 
Steinhart. That evening, at 11 o'clock, the document was 
ready for translation, and Mr. Taft and Mr. Bacon returned to 
Marianao. At 2 a. m. it was delivered to a representative of 
the Official Gazette, with orders to have the proclamation 
scattered broadcast early the following morning. 

The generous and concihatory nature of the proclamation 
surprised the country. No one, for instance, had expected that 
the Cuban flag would continue to fly over the public buildings. 
That fact, coupled with the sympathetic attitude of the Amer- 
ican commissioners and the strenuous efforts which they had 
made to bring about a settlement, was deeply appreciated. 

Mr. Taft continued as Provisional Governor and took 
counsel with Mr. Bacon until Mr. Magoon assumed office on 
October 13, 1906. The principal task was the disarming and 
disbanding of the insurgent forces. In this work a number of 
American army officers assisted. Mr. Bacon took special 
interest in the distribution of the American military units 
and in speeding the disarmament of the Cubans. In order to 
hasten this work he went personally to Matanzas to supervise 
the disarming of the force of General Montero. 



ii8 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

After Governor Magoon had assumed office, the two Peace 
Commissioners, Mrs. Taft, and Mrs. Bacon left for the United 
States on an American battleship. The people of Havana 
showed what they thought of the Peace Commission's work 
by joining in a demonstration of gratitude for what had been 
accomplished. The shore of the bay was lined with thousands 
of cheering people, all available water-craft was pressed into 
service to escort the ships to the mouth of the harbour, the 
forts exchanged salutes with the vessels, and amid all possible 
display of good will the Peace Commission left Cuba. 

Neither then nor after, however, did Mr. Bacon agree with 
the policy recommended by Mr. Taft and pursued by President 
Palma. The day before he left he said: "I am not satisfied. 
I shall be ashamed to look Mr. Root in the face. This inter- 
vention is contrary to his policy and what he has been preach- 
ing in South America." He thought that matters should have 
been left in status quo until Mr. Root's return from his South 
American trip, inasmuch as Mr. Root, as Secretary of War, had 
organized Cuba, and was more keenly interested in its welfare 
and more familiar with local conditions than any other North 
American. Mr. Bacon knew all this, and he Icnew further that 
Mr. Root believed it to be essential to the introduction and 
successful operation of constitutional government in Cuba and 
elsewhere that mistakes should be corrected by the ballot and 
not by revolution; that the defeated party should pursue such 
legal remedy as exists and triumph at the polls and not by 
revolt. 

Fortunately, an appeal of the Liberals in 1917 against the 
results of a presidential election which turned out against 
them fell upon deaf ears, and the Cubans were taught the 
great lesson of constitutional government, that what cannot be 
cured must be endured until the next election. 

It was hard to know then and there what would have been 
best; it is useless to speculate now what might or could have 
been done then. Probably another policy would have been 
preferable to the one actually followed. And Mr. Bacon would 
doubtless have questioned the wisdom of his views if they had 
been fully put into effect. Mr. Bacon always looked at an 
American question from the Continental point of view, and he 
considered three things: first, the interest of the United States, 



THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY 119 

the Interest of the special country concerned, and the effect 
that a policy would have upon America as a whole. He 
instinctively felt that intervention, although permitted and 
regulated by law, would disquiet Latin America, and then, too, 
he did not want the United States to get into the habit of 
intervening, fearing that some day the temptation to stay in 
that most beautiful of Islands might become too great even for 
our good faith. 



THE DOMINICAN LOAN 

During the absence of Mr. Root in South America the 
Dominican Minister of Finance was In the United States in 
quest of a loan and of assistance In settling the Dominican 
debt. Under the direction of his financial adviser, a loan agree- 
ment was made and an offer of settlement to the holders of 
debts and claims was drawn up. All the negotiations were 
carried on under the general supervision of Acting Secretary 
Bacon, with whom many conferences were had in the course of 
that hot summer. There were several modifications of detail 
afterward, but the work done in the summer of 1906 was the 
basis of the financial rehabilitation of the Dominican Republic. 
Claims aggregating more than thirty million dollars, exclusive of 
interest, were settled for less than seventeen millions, and at the 
same time several million dollars were made available for 
public works. 

Mr. Bacon's prudent advice and suggestions in the matter 
were of the greatest value. At the same time, his distinguished 
bearing and the fairness of his views made a deep impression 
upon the Dominican Minister of Finance. The latter had 
come to the United States somewhat reluctantly, and full of 
suspicion of American intentions. In a short time he was fully 
convinced that the State Department was as keenly interested 
in his country's welfare as he himself, and he often expressed 
admiration of Mr. Bacon. 

After Mr. Root's return from South America negotiations 
were continued with the Republic's creditors. Mr. Bacon 
retained his interest In Dominican affairs, and remained In close 
touch with the situation. A convention between the United 
States and the Dominican Republic was concluded at Santo 



ilo ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Domingo, February 8, 1907, ratifications were exchanged 
July 8th, and the Convention was proclaimed July 25th, the 
proclamation being signed by President Roosevelt and by 
Robert Bacon as Acting Secretary of State. It recites that 
disturbed political conditions in the Dominican Republic had 
created debts and claims; that the Dominican Republic had 
effected a conditional adjustment with its creditors; that part 
of the plan of settlement was the issue and sale of bonds to the 
amount of twenty million dollars; that the plan was conditional 
upon the assistance of the United States in the collection of 
customs revenues of the Dominican Republic, and that "The 
Dominican Republic has requested the United States to give 
and the United States is willing to give such assistance." The 
Convention therefore provided that the President of the 
United States shall appoint a general receiver of Dominican 
customs who shall collect all the customs duties in the custom- 
houses of Santo Domingo until the payment or redemption of 
the entire bond issue, and shall make specified payments to the 
fiscal agent of the loan and pay over the balance to the Domini- 
can Government. The Dominican Government agreed to 
give the general receiver and his assistants all needful aid and 
the United States undertook to furnish them such protection 
as it might find was required for the performance of their 
duties. Further, the convention stipulated that until the 
payment of the full amount of the bonds, the Dominican Re- 
public was not to increase its public debt or modify the import 
duties except by previous agreement with the United States. 

President Roosevelt was more than satisfied with the way in 
which Mr. Bacon had handled the Dominican difficulty with 
Senor Valasquez, Minister of Finance of that Republic. Under 
date of July 21, 1906, he wrote: 

Dear Bob: 

That is first class. Please in my name congratulate Seiior Velas- 
quez and say how delighted I am. . . . 

Faithfully yours, 
Theodore Roosevelt. 

The financial readjustment and the Convention of 1907 
have been of inestimable benefit to the Dominican Republic. 
Their full significance is not yet realized. 



THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY 121 

THE PORTO RICAN CHURCH PROPERTY SETTLEMENT 

The question of the Church lands in Porto Rico may be 
properly mentioned in this connection, although the settle- 
ment was not made during Mr. Root's absence in South 
America, but in the summer of 1908, when Mr. Bacon was 
again Acting Secretary. 

The Roman Catholic Church had been from time immemorial 
established in Spain, and Church and State were united in the 
Spanish possessions beyond the Peninsula. Church and State 
are separate bodies in the United States, and it was necessary 
to disestablish the Church in the Philippines and Porto Rico 
if the American scheme of things was to exist in the insular 
possessions. Secretary of War Taft had in cooperation with 
Secretary of State Root adjusted the claims of the Church 
properties in the Philippines. These questions had likewise 
been settled in Cuba. They were still outstanding in Porto 
Rico. 

Mr. Regis H. Post, Governor of Porto Rico at the time, has 
put the matter in its proper light in a few paragraphs: 

When the United States acquired Porto Rico, the buildings and 
small parcels of lands scattered through the Island, and from whose 
taxes salaries of the priests and Church subsidies were paid, were 
taken possession of by the United States Government. . . . 

On cessation of these payments the Church asserted its claim to the 
title to the buildings and lands. . . . 

The situation was most annoying and embarrassing to the Roman 
Catholic Church in Porto Rico. Suddenly deprived of all revenue 
from the government it was obliged to appeal to its parishioners for 
support, and they were not only bitterly poor, but had always re- 
garded the Church as a government institution like the police or fire 
department, and could not bring themselves to the point of contribut- 
ing generously for its support. As a matter of fact, the Church was 
in bitter need of ready money. 

In the spring of 1908, while I was on a visit to Washington, Presi- 
dent Roosevelt asked me if there was not some way in which we could 
properly settle these cases out of court, to the advantage of both the 
Government and the Church. . . . The suggestion of a commission 
to represent the Island, the United States Government, and the 
Church . . . met the President's approval, and he appointed 
Mr. Bacon, Assistant Secretary of State, and Major Mclntyre, 



122 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Assistant Chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, to represent the 
United States. The Attorney General of Porto Rico and the Speaker 
of the House of Delegates represented the Island and the Vicar 
General of the Island and the Attorney for the Church, Senor Juan 
Hernandez Lopez, represented the Church. 

This commission met in the governor's residence in San Juan and 
sat for about three days. Mr. Bacon quickly took the lead and by 
his frank and businesslike method of conducting the discussions, car- 
ried the negotiations at once from petty haggling over details to a 
broad ground of settlement. He clearly demonstrated to all parties 
the simple fact that the two governments wanted the buildings and 
the Church decidedly did not; and that the Church did want cash of 
which both governments had plenty. Therefore, the question was 
what amount was proper to fix. 

Again, with perfectly good manners and with the charm which he 
could exert so effectively, he "gentled" the representative of the 
Church from a somewhat optimistic idea of the value of the property, 
and shamed the representatives of the Insular Government out of an 
equally pessimistic opinion thereof, with the result that a cash 
payment to the Church was decided upon that was satisfactory 
to all. 

A word or two may be said to supplement Mr. Post's in- 
teresting account. 

As the bonds which were given to the Church v^hen its 
property was taken over by the Spanish authorities long before 
the acquisition of the island by the United States had not 
been paid, the Church maintained that it was entitled to the 
property for which they were given. This contention was 
sustained by the Supreme Court of Porto Rico.^ The Supreme 
Court of the United States likewise sustained this contention 
on appeal in another case involving the same issue.^ 

The property involved was the Convent of Santo Domingo 
and the Ballaja Barracks occupied by the United States, in the 
Municipality of Ponce, named after the first Governor of 
Porto Rico, the famous Ponce de Leon, who later lost his life 
searching for that will o' the wisp, the Fountain of Youth. 
The Church being entitled to this property, there was nothing 

^The Roman Catholic Apostolic Church v. The People in Porto Rico (1906), II Porto 
Rko Reports, 466. 

'^Municipality oj Ponce v. Roman Catholic Apostolic Church in Porto Rico (1908), 210 
United States Reports, 296. 



THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY 123 

for the United States to do but to surrender possession or to 
offer a fair sum of money, in the nature of a purchase, to the 
Church. Mr. Bacon proposed the latter, which was accepted, 
and the lands granted to the Dominican Order by Ponce de 
Leon himself, in the early and romantic days of American 
history, became the lawful property of the United States, for 
the paltry sum of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. 
The people of Porto Rico paid the Church one hundred and 
eighty thousand dollars for certain properties in possession of 
the Insular authorities; other properties were returned to the 
Church, and the Church itself relinquished other claims. 

The peculiar feature of the settlement was that all parties 
concerned were under the impression that they had made an 
excellent bargain. The law of the Porto Rican Assembly 
ratifying the settlement, approved in the fall of 1908, is almost 
exultant in tone. 

The agreement received President Roosevelt's "entire 
approval"; the Congress of the United States saw "the great 
importance of the matter," and upon President Roosevelt's 
request made the necessary appropriations. The Vatican 
likewise approved the compromise. Mr. Bacon had settled 
out of court a most annoying and vexatious question, to the 
satisfaction of everyone, upon the basis of " kindly considera- 
tion and honourable obligation." 



THE PANAMA AFFAIR 

There was another matter outstanding, which Mr. Root 
wanted, if possible, to settle during President Roosevelt's 
administration. This was the bitter resentment in Co- 
lombia over the recognition of Panama by the United 
States after the Panama Revolution of November 3, 
1903, and the building of the Canal under title derived from 
the new Panamanian Republic. 

On his return from South America in September, 1906, 
Mr. Root visited Carthagena to meet Mr. Vasquez-Cobo, 
the Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had come 
from Bogota for that purpose, and they then agreed upon 
a basis of negotiation which was satisfactory to the Govern- 
ment of Colombia. The result was a tripartite agreement 



124 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

known as the Ship Canal agreement, signed at Washington, 
January 9, 1909. This consisted of three separate treaties. 
The first was between Colombia and the United States, the 
second was between Panama and the United States, and the 
third was between Colombia and Panama. 




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CHAPTER IX 

Secretary of State 

Less than three weeks after the signing of the treaties with 
Panama and Colombia, Mr. Root had resigned the Secretary- 
ship of State, and was succeeded as Secretary, on January 27th, 
by Mr. Bacon, who served during the rest of President Roose- 
velt's administration. 

On taking leave of his associates in the Department of State 
Mr. Root said: 

"It is a source of great regret for me to lay down this work. There 
are many things I would like to go on with, but circumstances, quite 
apart from the official duties, made it necessary that I should make a 
change. . . . It is a cause of great satisfaction to me that I shall be 
succeeded for a time by so loyal and true a friend as Mr. Bacon . . ." 

Mr. Root had expressed regret that he was unable to continue. 
He did continue, in the person of his "loyal and true" friend, 
Mr. Bacon, who regarded it as his first and greatest duty to 
carry to completion the projects which Mr. Root had begun 
and was unable to finish. 

Through Mr. Bacon's deep interest and urgent personal 
appeals the Senate advised and consented, on February 24, 
1909, to the treaty between Colombia and the United States. 
The Senate was harder to move in the second of the treaties, 
that between Panama and the United States. It yielded, 
although reluctantly, to Mr. Bacon's insistence and earnestness, 
for he was convinced that the ratification of this treaty as well 
as the other was in the interest of the United States and of a 
trustful Pan-Americanism. He felt, and rightly, that if 
Colombia should fail to ratify the treaties, the United States 
would be credited with an attempt to clear up the situation as 
a matter of policy, if for no higher reason. 

The treaty between Panama and the United States was 

1 25 



126 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

advised and consented to by the Senate, March 3, 1909, one 
day before the close of Mr. Roosevelt's administration. Colom- 
bia, however, would have none of the treaties. Minister 
Enrique Cortes, who had been transferred from London to 
Washington in order to negotiate directly with Mr. Root, had 
persuaded President Reyes, of Colombia, to conclude these 
various treaties. President Reyes, however, could not persuade 
his Government. The request to ratify the treaties caused an 
outbreak; the outbreak developed into a revolution; President 
Reyes' government was overthrown, he fled the country, and 
died an exile. 

These agreements would have cleared up the entire situa- 
tion. They would have restored friendly relations between 
Colombia and the United States; they would have defined the 
relations between Panama and the United States, and they 
would have put an end to the strained relations between 
Colombia and Panama. However, the Panama muddle was, 
it is to be hoped, settled by a treaty between Colombia and the 
United States concluded April 6, 1914, advised and consented 
to by the Senate, with sundry modifications, April 20, 1921. 
It was ratified by Colombia, March i, 1922, and ratifications 
were exchanged on the same date. By this treaty the United 
States undertakes to pay Colombia the sum of twenty-five 
million dollars. 

No American would have been more pleased than Mr. Bacon, 
although he would undoubtedly have preferred the earlier 
treaties, which cleared up the entire situation, not merely the 
relation of the United States to Colombia, but also the relations 
of each of the three contracting countries to one another. 
Three bites to a cherry are better than none, and, as President 
Lincoln has said, "Nothing is settled until it is settled right." 

A PERMANENT COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE 

A conference of the representatives of ten naval powers, 
including the United States, met in London in the month of 
December, 1908, and adjourned in the last week of February, 
1909, during Mr. Bacon's tenure of the Secretaryship of State. 
It was called to agree upon the rules of law to be applied by 
the International Prize Court which had been adopted by the 



SECRETARY OF STATE 127 

Second Hague Conference. Great Britain was unwilling or 
unable to be a party to its establishment without an agreement 
upon the law to be administered by the judges in the determina- 
tion of prize cases which might be referred to the Court from 
the different countries, for its decision. An agreement was 
reached upon these principles, and they were embodied in the 
so-called Declaration of London. 

The Declaration of London proved unsatisfactory to Great 
Britain. It was not ratified by that power, and neither the Dec- 
laration of Prize Law nor the Prize Court has come into being. 

During the course of the Conference at London, Mr. Bacon 
instructed the American delegates to make a proposal to invest 
the Prize Court with the jurisdiction of a permanent court of 
international justice. Sir Edward Grey, then His Majesty's 
Principal Secretary for Foreign Affairs, was won over by Mr. 
Bacon's enthusiasm, and urgent appeals to accept the pro- 
posal, but the Conference was not. It believed that its man- 
date was limited to supplying the law for the Prize Court, and 
not to enlarging its jurisdiction. Some of its members, in- 
clined to lend a helping hand, suggested that the method of 
appointing the judges of the Prize Court could be adopted for 
that of the Court of Arbitral Justice, to use the name of this 
institution recommended by the Second Hague Peace Confer- 
ence. In this way, each Court would be created and each would 
act within the sphere marked out for it by the Peace Conference. 

Mr. Bacon seized upon the idea and informed the Powers 
taking part in the Naval Conference that a circular note would 
be shortly sent by the Department of State advocating this 
method of appointing the judges for the first Permanent Court 
of International Justice which the nations of the world had had 
the wisdom and foresight to propose. 

An instruction to this effect, to Ambassador Reid, signed 
on the fifth day of March, at nine o'clock in the morning, and 
a moment before his successor took office, was the last official 
document to which Mr. Bacon put his hand as Secretary of 
State. It was in the form of a cable: 

You will again convey to Sir Edward Grey this Government's high 
appreciation of his attitude toward investing the Prize Court with 
jurisdiction of [the] Court of Arbitral Justice. . . . 



128 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

You will inform Sir Edward that this Government will, upon re- 
ceipt of the texts of the Conference, send an identic circular note to 
each of the participating powers. . . . 

The note will also show the advisability of investing the Prize Court 
with the jurisdiction and functions of a Court of Arbitral Justice in 
order that international law may be administered and justice done in 
peace as well as in war by a permanent international tribunal. . . . 

It is not [the] intention of this Government to use pressure of any 
kind to secure acceptance of its views, but the United States feels that 
. . . creating [a] permanent court of arbitration would contribute 
in the greatest possible manner to the cause of judicial and therefore' 
peaceable settlement of international difficulties. 

The circular notes were sent by Secretary Knox and negotia- 
tions were undertaken which, but for the outbreak of the 
World War, would, it is believed, have resulted in the establish- 
ment of the Court of Arbitral Justice as a separate institution. 
The project, however, survived the war. The Court was 
constituted in 1921, and it was formally opened and installed 
in the Peace Palace of The Hague on June 15, 1922. 

It was proposed by Mr. Root in his introduction to the Ameri- 
can delegates at t"he Second Hague Peace Conference and its 
constitution in 1921 was largely due to Mr. Root's tact, wisdom, 
and personal efforts. 

THE CONFERENCE FOR THE CONSERVATION OF NATURAL 

RESOURCES 

Mr. Bacon was an enthusiast for the conservation of natural 
resources. He was therefore properly appointed a delegate to a 
conservation conference, which met in Washington, February, 
1909, to which Canada and Mexico were invited. It was 
suggested "that all Nations be invited to join together in 
Conference on the subject of world resources, and their inven- 
tory, conservation, and wise utilization. "^ This recommenda- 
tion did not fall upon deaf ears. President Roosevelt forthwith 
directed Secretary Bacon to instruct American diplomatic 
agents to invite the Governments to which they were re- 
spectively accredited, and in accord with the Government of 
Holland, 

^Senate Document No. 742, 60th Congress, 2nd Session. 



SECRETARY OF STATE 119 

To send delegates to a conference to be held at The Hague at such 
date as may be found convenient, there to meet and consult the like 
delegates of the other countries, with a view to considering a general 
plan for an inventory of the natural resources of the world and to 
devising a uniform scheme for the expression of the results of such 
inventory to the end that there may be a general understanding and 
appreciation of the world's supply of the material elements which 
underlie the development of civilization and the welfare of the peoples 
of the earth.^ 

The advantages to accrue to each nation, and therefore to all 
the nations, from the conservation of natural resources, Mr. 
Bacon thus stated: 

It would be appropriate also for the Conference to consider the 
general phases of the correlated problem of checking and, when possi- 
ble, repairing the injuries caused by the waste and destruction of 
natural resources and utilities, and make recommendations in the inter- 
est of their conservation, development, and replenishment. 

With such a world inventory and such recommendations the vari- 
ous producing countries of the whole world would be in a better posi- 
tion to cooperate, each for its own good and all for the good of all, 
toward the safeguarding and betterment of their common means of 
support. As was said in the preliminary Aide-Memoire of January 
6th: 

"The people of the whole world are interested in the natural re- 
sources of the whole world, benefited by their conservation and 
injured by their destruction. The people of every country are inter- 
ested in the supply of food and of material for manufacture in every 
other country, not only because these are interchangeable through 
processes of trade, but because a knowledge of the total supply is 
necessary to the intelligent treatment of each nation's share of the 
supply." 

Nor is this all. A knowledge of the continuance and stability of 
perennial and renewable resources is no less important to the world 
than a knowledge of the quantity or the term remaining for the en- 
joyment of those resources which when consumed are irreplaceable. 
As to all the great natural sources of national welfare, the peoples of 
to-day hold the earth in trust for the peoples to come after them. 
Reading the lessons of the past aright, it would be for such a con- 
ference to look beyond the present to the future. 

'Letter of Alvey A. Adee, Acting Secretary of State to Certain Diplomatic Offices 
Abroad, February 19, 1909. Foreign Relations, igog, pp. i, 2. 



I30 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

President Roosevelt's administration was drawing to its 
close, and Mr. Bacon was no longer to be in the Department of 
State to urge the call of the Conference. A new administra- 
tion has new policies and many a good suggestion of the old 
slumbers, if it does not die, in the change. But ideas survive 
and have a habit of making their way to the surface. It can- 
not be doubted that the movement for the conservation of 
natural resources will take visible form and shape, after the 
loss and destruction of the World War, and some day, when the 
world has grown wiser as the result of bitter experience, Mr. 
Bacon's conference will sit at The Hague, or elsewhere, to 
conserve what is left of this world's neglected and wasted re- 
sources. 

With the 6th of March, 1909, Mr. Bacon's successor entered 
upon the performance of his duties. And he to whom Mr. 
Bacon referred as "my master, Elihu Root", wrote under date 
of March 31, 1909: 

My dear Robert: 

Until to-night I have not permitted myself to realize that you are 
to leave Washington, and I feel as if I were marooned on a desert 
island. 

It is hard for men to express to each other such feelings as I have 
about our association during these crowded and happy years of service 
in the State Department. You have proved yourself far more able 
and forceful than I had dared to hope — possessed of courage to take 
responsibility and conduct great affairs without flinching or loss 
of judgment or nerve — competent to fill any post of government with 
distinction and success. More than that, you have had the imagina- 
tion to realize the ultimate objects of policy, and tireless energy and 
enthusiasm and self-devotion in pressing towards those objects, and 
your brave-hearted cheerfulness and power of friendship and steadfast 
loyalty have been noble and beautiful. 

I am sure you have a still more distinguished career before you for 
all who love you to rejoice in. 



PART V 

THE MISSION TO FRANCE 

In a comparison of this with other countries we have the proof 
of primacy^ which was given to Themistocles after the battle of 
Salamis. Every general voted to himself the first reward of 
valour^ and the second to Themistocles. So ask the travelled in- 
habitant of any nation^ In what country on earth would you 
rather live? — Certainly in my own^ where are all my friends^ my 
relations^ and the earliest & sweetest affections and recollections of 
my life. Which would be your second choice? France. 

Thomas Jefferson. 

Afin qu'on disc un jour^ selon mon esperance\ 
Tout homme a deux pays^ le sien et puis la France! 

Henri de Bornier, ''La Fille de Roland.'' 



CHAPTER X 

The American Ambassador 

The first step in "a still more distinguished career" was 
Mr. Bacon's appointment as American Ambassador to France, 
in December, 1910. His selection was gratifying alike to his 
friends and to the public. The following clipping from a well- 
known weekly voices, I believe, the general opinion: 

Last week President Taft sent to the Senate the names of three 
appointees as ambassadors. . . . The appointees were promptly 
confirmed. First on the list was the name of Hon. Robert Bacon . . . 
an admirable appointment. At a time when the question of our tariff 
relations with France is pressing we are sending thither a representa- 
tive who, as former member of the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co. and 
later as Assistant Secretary and Secretary of State, has had valuable 
experience in business and in diplomacy. Personally a singularly 
winsome man and with a character of rare fidelity and conscientious- 
ness, Mr. Bacon may be depended on to repeat the successes of his 
immediate predecessors as Ambassadors, General Horace Porter and 
Mr. Henry White. So admirable was the last named in this and 
other positions that the announcement of a change in our representa- 
tion at Paris came as a surprise which was turned into a disappoint- 
ment when it was disclosed that Mr. White was not to be promoted to 
London but was to be retired from a service in which he had shown 
remarkable efficiency for a quarter of a century. 

Mr. White and Mr, Bacon represent thoroughly simplicity, straight- 
forwardness, sincerity, breadth of vision, and grasp of detail.^ 

There was nothing eventful in Mr. Bacon's ambassadorship. 
The relations between France and the United States are 
proverbially friendly, and the ambassador is a success if 
matters go on as before his arrival. Mr. Bacon continued the 
great traditions, as Mr. White had done before him. The 
personality of the new ambassador, his unusual charm of 
manner, his knowledge of France and of things French, his 

^The Outlook, January i, 1910, vol. 94, no. i, p. 5. 



134 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

admiration of its people consistent with respect and sympathy 
for other countries ajid peoples, quickly won for him the esteem 
of not only the French officials, and all classes of the people of 
France, but also the confidence, respect, and friendship of his 
colleagues of the diplomatic corps. 

In addition to all this, Mr. Bacon made an individual and 
personal appeal to all classes. His love of and participation in 
sports appealed to their imagination. They liked to see an 
ambassador who could play polo or who could ride with the 
youngest of them in hunting. The French cavalry officer of 
his day was known as among the best riders of the world, and 
the French, proud of their own superiority in the field, appreci- 
ated the capability of the American representative. 

THE PARIS FLOOD 

Mr. Bacon had barely presented his credentials as ambassa- 
dor, and entered upon his duties, when an opportunity of 
rendering service and of showing sympathy to the people of 
Paris presented itself. The Seine had been rising. The 
stream was swollen from the mass of waters reaching it above 
Paris; it was overflowing its banks and flooding the portions of 
the city in the neighbourhood of the river; ordinarily winding 
its way peaceably to the Channel, it was now moving with the 
force and destructiveness of a torrent. The last week of 
January and the first half of February were trying and danger- 
ous. Paris had had floods before, but the men and women 
then living had not experienced any of such magnitude. One 
there had been in 1740, during the reign of Louis XV, and 
another under the Consulate, soon to be the Empire, of the 
Great Napoleon. They were much alike, as shown by the 
maps of the three printed in V Illustration during the flood. 
"The same quarters," L Illustration recalled, "are to-day 
covered by water; in the same streets the cellars of the houses 
are inundated, but then there was no metropolitan [under- 
ground electric railway] drowned; no lines of railroads sub- 
merged, no gas mains broken, no electric and telephone wires cut.* 
Many of the inhabitants of houses in the flood regions 
escaped by boats from the upper stories, got under cover in 

^L' Illustration, January 29, 1910, Tome 135, p. 88. 



THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 135 

other houses, if they were fortunate enough to be taken in, or 
fled to other portions of the city. Business was at a standstill 
in the invaded districts, boats threaded the streets in lieu of 
cabs and trams, and in the photographs of the time, the city 
wore in part the aspect of Venice except for the evidences of 
destruction and desertion which abounded. 

But although communication within was impeded, without, 
the world was kept in touch, and nowhere was sympathy more 
marked than in the United States and in the American Colony 
in Paris. 

On January 29th, Mr. Bacon cabled the Department of 
State: 

Before receipt of yours, January 27, 2 p. m., I succeeded with much 
difficulty this morning calling Foreign Office, which practically evac- 
uated on account of flood. Expressed deep sympathy of United 
States Government and people for dreadful calamities caused by flood, 
and asked if perfectly agreeable to French Government to receive 
contributions in aid of sufferers from American citizens, from whom I 
have received many off"ers by cable . . . Was assured such funds 
would be gratefully received and should be transmitted through Em- 
bassy to French Government.^ 

The next day, the 29th, the American Chamber of Commerce 
at Paris called a meeting of all Americans in the city. Mr. 
Bacon was requested to preside at the meeting, and did so. 
In the course of his opening remarks, he said: 

I am assured that contributions from Americans in all parts of the 
world, or from anybody else, will be very gratefully received. There 
are many ways of contributing. The object of this meeting is not to 
suggest to anybody how contributions should be made, but, as the 
President will tell you, on their behalf, the Chamber of Commerce is 
ready to do anything it can to transmit any subscriptions, however 
small or large, direct to the Government of France, because it seems 
most advisable that our contributions should be made through the 
Government, leaving it for them to decide by what agencies or chan- 
nels the distribution is to be made. 

The French Government assured prospective contributors 
that their funds would be distributed as they wished, their 

'See, Foreign Relations 0/ the United States, 19 10, p. 508. 



136 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

wishes to be specified through the medium of the American 
Ambassador. 

In a memorandum on the American Rehef Fund, it is stated, 
confirming and elaborating the brief quotation from L Illustra- 
tion^ that, 

The damage and destitution caused within the city were partic- 
ularly severe since the rising water not only actually overficwed its 
narrow artificial channel, but also backed up the sewer mains, crip- 
pling the drainage system of the city, stopped electrical power plants, 
and suspended traffic on the metropolitan and surface tramways. 
Several thousands of the inhabitants of Paris were rendered tempo- 
rarily homeless, cut off from their customary food supplies, and, in 
many cases, deprived of former wage-earning. . . . 

The spontaneity and promptness with which aid was offered were 
particularly appreciated by the French Government and people at a 
time when, partly on account of what had appeared an impending 
tariff war, public opinion in France seemed to be losing its traditional 
cordiality toward America. 

The effect on Mr. Bacon's position as ambassador in the early 
days of his mission put at his disposition a capital of good will 
upon which he could draw, as circumstances suggested or 
required. 

In a letter of February 19th to Mr. Bacon about the ar- 
rangements for Colonel Roosevelt's impending visit to Paris, 
Ambassador Jusserand said: 

You did not need any outward circumstance to become at once 
popular in Paris. But if you had, the inundations were the sort of 
things to make you so. We know what you can do in waters [referring 
humorously to the swimming bouts in the Potomac, with Colonel 
Roosevelt and his intimates, of whom the French Ambassador and 
Mr. Bacon were in the first rank] and you were up to your best mark. 
All reports about you and Mrs. Bacon . . . agree and it is all 
praise, friendship, and sympathy. 

COLONEL Roosevelt's visit 

An interesting, indeed a spectacular event of Mr. Bacon's 
embassy was the visit of Ex-President Roosevelt, the lion 
hunter, fresh from Africa, himself the greatest "lion" of them 
all. Mr. Roosevelt stayed at the Embassy. His address at 



THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 137 

the Sorbonne, advising the French to have bigger families in 
the future, went off well, and the French people cheered them- 
selves hoarse over "Teddie," as they called him. The visit 
was a success, a pleasure to Mr. Roosevelt, and a comfort to 
Mr. Bacon, as ambassadors sometimes have a hard time of it 
with their distinguished countrymen who honour foreign 
capitals with their presence. Rarely are they as distinguished 
abroad as at home — a fact which must be concealed from them. 
The foreign officials must be impressed with the claims of the 
visitor, without raising a suspicion that they do not know — as 
they generally do not — the services of the stranger within their 
gates. But with Mr. Roosevelt there was no need of prepara- 
tion of this kind; the only danger was that he should be roughly 
handled by the crowds which gathered wherever he went and 
threatened to kill him with kindness. 

The Colonel had made up his mind to visit the wilds of Africa 
on a hunting and scientific trip. He carried out his plan to 
the letter, and for months the voice that filled the world was 
quiet. He enjoyed himself, however. Big game abounded, 
which he and his party " bagged", and the specimens sent home 
and to-day exhibited in the Smithsonian Institution would 
alone have justified the trip, if other reasons had been wanting. 
From time to time there was news of his movements, and as 
he was to strike the Nile and return to civilization through 
Egypt, the countries of Europe vied in friendly rivalry for a vis- 
it from the mighty hunter and the world-renowned statesman. 

For the week April 21-28, 1910, to be spent in France, the 
Colonel naturally looked to the American Ambassador in 
Paris, and to the French Ambassador in Washington, M. 
Jusserand, who was to leave his post and greet him on the banks 
of the Seine. These two diplomats planned a week which 
would have been fatal to one less sturdy and determined than 
the Colonel. 

Mr. Bacon received a characteristic letter, dated ''On 
Safariy Nov. 25th, 1909", 

The enclosed explain themselves; I have referred the writers to you 
and Jusserand; in all these matters I will do whatever you and 
Jusserand say — I include good Jusserand because it was he who got 
me to accept the Sorbonne invitation. 



138 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

Moreover the pastor of the American church in Paris, a very good 
fellow, has written me on the same subject. Now, may I bother you 
by asking you to get him to call on you to talk it over? I do not want 
to write him what I want you to ask him. I heartily believe in the 
Y. M. C. A. work; the request [to address them] appeals to me 
strongly; but I must not accept a request from a factious or sectarian 
body. The French people who have any religion are overwhelming 
Catholic; and I ought not to accept unless this Paris Y. M. C. A. is 
predominantly Catholic— of course. I hope there are Protestants in 
it, too. Can you write on this point to Jusserand? . . . 

In the end the invitation was refused. The Colonel's later 
experience in Rome doubtless convinced him as to the wisdom 
of the decision. 

The rest of the letter deals with the disappointments incident 
to large, or, for that matter, to small, game, 

Yesterday I missed a lion, and am covered with shame as with a 
garment. Two days ago I saw one of the finest sights any one can see: 
the Nandi warriors killed a lion with their spears, two of them being 
mauled. . . • 

I have killed some elephants for Fair Osborn's American Museum.^ 

In a few lines from Gondokoro, dated February 27, 1 910, he 
again wrote Mr. Bacon — first of the visit, and then of a riding 
accident which Mr. Bacon had suffered, on the eve of his 
departure for Paris. The news of it had reached Mr. Roosevelt 
in Africa. 

Now, thanks to the desires of the Kaiser, the King, the Nobel 
Prize people,- 1 may have to arrive in Paris about April 20th; I'll wire 
you from Khartoum or Cairo. . . . 

I look forward eagerly, my dear Bob, to being your guest; but I am 
greatly concerned to hear of your accident. But you take such 
chances that I wasn't surprised; I hope, but I don't believe that it will 

'The person thus affectionately addressed was his friend, Henry Fairfield Osborn, a 
distinguished paleontologist, and President of the Board of Trustees of the American 
Museum of Natural History, in the City of New York. 

^rhe peace prize, one of five created by Alfred Nobel (1833- 1896), a distinguished 
Swedish scientist and the inventor of dynamite, was to be awarded annually to the 
person who had done the most to advance the cause of peace. On December 10, 1906, 
the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament awarded the peace prize to Presi- 
dent Roosevelt. 



THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 139 

make you more cautious. You run more risks at home than I run in 
Africa. 

Later, from the White Nile, March loth, the Colonel re- 
curred to the accident, saying, 

You must have had a very severe fall. Poor Mrs. Bacon! With 
such a devil-may-care husband! I am glad my wife hasn't such fears 
to undergo. But I am also glad that my boy Kermit has shown a 
good deal of what I may call the Bacon spirit (of the father and sons) 
here in Africa. 

Pending information regarding his plans, he himself voiced 
his preferences in a note of March nth: 

Of course I shall not make a single public speech save at the Sor- 
bonne. ... I should like to lunch with Coubertin;^ and I should 
like very much to meet at informal (and therefore rather small) 
dinners, anywhere, such men as Deschanel,^ Hanotaux,^ etc. How 
big is the "Societe des Conferences?" I should greatly like to meet 
such men as Michel* and Rene Bazin,^ where I could talk with them, 

'Baron Pierre de Coubertin (1863- ), French litterateur, and deeply interested in 
international and popular sports. Among some of his writings are L' EJucation en 
Angleterre; Universites transatla^tiques; Souvenirs d^Amerique et de Grece; L' Evolution 
franfaise sous la III' Re^ublique, and V education des Adolescents au XX' Siecle (3 vol- 
umes). 

Colonel Roosevelt was probably more drawn to him becauseof his interest in sports, 
manifested in his la Gymnastique utilitaire; Essais de Psychologie Sportive; and still more 
by the fact that he was the founder of the Olympic Games (1894) and president of the 
International Olympic Committee. 

2Paul Deschanel (1856-1922), Member of the French Academy, repeatedly President 
of the Chamber of Deputies, President of France for a few months in 1920, when he was 
unfortunately obliged to resign because of ill health. Famous as an orator, he also has 
a number of books to his credit, among which may be mentioned Figures de Femmes 
(1889), Figures litteraires (1889), and Gambetta (1920). 

^Gabriel Hanotaux (1853- ), Member of the French Academy; French states- 
man and man of letters. Minister of Foreign Affairs, with but a slight interruption, from 
1894 to 1898, developing the rapprochement of France with Russia. As an historian he 
is best known for his Histoire du Cardinal de Richelieu (2 vols., 1888); Histoire de la 
Troisieme Republique (1904, et seq.). He is editor of the elaborate Histoire de la 
Nation frangaise (17 volumes; vol. i appeared in 1920). 

^Andre Paul Michel (1853- ), Member of the Institute of France; Director of 
National Museums; Professor at the Ecole du Louvre; a distinguished art critic and 
author, especially of Histoire generale de I'art depuis les temps Chretiens, in course of 
publication since 1905. 

sRene Bazin (i 853- ), Member of the French Academy, man of letters, especially 
noted as a novelist of great charm and delicacy. Une tache d'encre (1888); La Terre 
qui meurt; Croquis de France et d'Orient (1899), etc., etc. 

\ 



I40 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

and not make a foolish speech at them. I must get time to see the 
Louvre. 

In a letter of April 5th, from Rome, he begged his social 
managers to give him " an hour or two at the Louvre sometime," 
and promised them, to quote his own words, "I shall keep 
clear of the Rubens gallery, which I loathe, but there are some 
of the pictures which I must see." 

To recur to his letter from the White Nile: 

Am I expected to dine with my fellow members of the Institute?^ 
Of course I shall be glad to [do] so, if, as I gather from Jusserand, it 
is expected of me. 

Aside from the Sorbonne, the Institut affair, and the President's 
dinner, if he wishes to give me one, do try to keep my engagements as 
far as possible informal; let me meet, at your house or elsewhere, the 
men really worth meeting (including if possible de la Gorce,2 the his- 
torian . . .) in such fashion that I can talk with them, be they 
hunters, men of letters, or public men. Do have d'Estournelles [de 
Constant]^ to see me. 

From" Aboard the Ibis on the Nile," he wrote, on March 19th: 
"All right, I will expect to be received by the President Thurs- 
day or Friday." This was so that the Colonel should pay his 
respects to the Chief Magistrate of France, then President 
Fallieres, before showing himself in public. He continued. 

Judging from your telegram both the Institut and the Sorbonne 
will give me some kind of joint or several entertainments on Saturday 

'He had been elected December 1 8, 1 909, a Foreign Associate of the Institut de France, 
but had not yet taken his seat. 

^Pierre de la Gorce (1846- ), Member of the French Academy; author of Histoire 
de la Seconde Republique Frartfaise (1887), Histoire du Second Empire (1896-1905), 
and Histoire religieuse de la Revolution (1909). 

'Baron Paul d'Estournelles de Constant (1852- ), Deputy and Senator; Rep- 
resentative of France to the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907. Awarded 
(with M. Beernaert, Minister of State of Belgium) the Nobel Peace Prize for 1909. 
It was upon his suggestion that President Roosevelt, in 1902, referred the dispute be- 
tween Mexico and the United States concerning the Pius Fund of the Californias to 
the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. This was the first case to be sub- 
mitted to that tribunal. 

Among his many writings may be mentioned Les Etats-Unis d' Amerique (1913, new 
edition, 1917); America and Her Problems (English translation, 1915, by George A. 
Raper). 




Thk American- Embassy During the Flood lyio 



THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 141 

— as to the details of which I am totally indifferent. So arrange them 
to suit yourself. I also understand the President will "entertain" me 
(ugh! what awful possibilities are embraced in the word "entertain") 
some day the following week before Thursday which is the day I 
leave. 

As to the details of the programme, Bob, my wishes are yours. This 
is a mean way of shoving responsibility on to your shoulders and I know 
it will cause you anxiety; but upon my word I cannot tell what partic- 
ular outfits you think I ought to be with; for at least here in Africa 
I am not as good a judge as you are in Paris. 

But although leaving the details of the programme and the 
"outfits" to Mr. Bacon, he proceeded to state what he would 
personally like to do in Paris, if he were somewhat of a free 
agent. These little passages show the Colonel as he really was, 
and give a better picture of him than description second or 
third hand. The Colonel continued: 

Let me lunch with Coubertin and have informal lunches and 
dinners with such people as you and Jusserand think I ought to 
meet. But don't put me down for any public dinners. Don't 
have me go to any dinner with members of the American Col- 
ony (I have not much use for American Colonists in Europe), 
and so far as possible let me see Mrs. Bacon and you and the 
rest of your family and the Jusserands privately just as often as 
you can. That is what I shall really enjoy. I will go anywhere 
you find my engagements will permit. I want to see the Louvre, 
Versailles, and a number of other places, and I want to visit certain 
book shops, so do let me have the mornings and evenings as free 
from outside interference as possible; so that I can do the attrac- 
tive things I want, either with you, or with Jusserand, or with my 
own family, as events may decide. If you think you ought to have 
the Americans meet me at a reception at the Embassy, why that 
will be all right, but exercise your own judgment in the matter. 

In a second letter of the same date, he said, 

I have received your letter of March 8 with enclosures. . , . 

Now you ask what I "r^«//y would like to do." . . . Personally, 
I should be very melancholy if I spent an evening at the Opera, but 
very probably Mrs. Roosevelt would like to go. . . . ^ 

'Mr. Roosevelt often said of himself that he knew only two tunes — "Yankee Doodle," 
and "Glengarry." In 1905, at the twenty-fifth reunion of the Harvard Class of 1880 
he was asked to lead the procession, with Mr. Bacon, who was Class Marshal, as he had 



142 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Now let me know if you think I have not given you a free enough 
hand or have not been sufficiently explicit. . . . 

Colonel Roosevelt could hardly escape a speech in Egypt, 
through which he was reaching the outer world, and he would 
have to make an address in England, which he was to visit. 
In view of the advisory tone of these addresses, the concluding 
sentence of this letter, written long before the event, is partic- 
ularly interesting, "To my intense amusement," he said, 
"the English Government is not only very polite, but most 
anxious that I shall use a didactic tone, both to their own 
people and the Egyptians." 

The result of the interchange of cables and letters and of 
numerous conferences with the people in Paris is stated in 
Mr. Bacon's cable of April 2nd, to "Theodore Roosevelt, 
American Consulate, Naples," 

Thanks for letters. . . . Entire programme as follows: "Thursday 
call on President and Madame Fallieres who offers box Theatre 
Frangais Thursday evening. Friday visit Invalides, luncheon Cou- 
bertin, afternoon Louvre and American Club's dinner President at 
Elysee. Saturday Institut and Sorbonne. Sunday peace and 
Jusserand. Monday Carnavalet^ luncheon Jusserand or Embassy, 
afternoon Bibliotheque Nationale. Dinner and reception at Embassy, 
although President offers his box Opera that night. Tuesday 
Saumur twelve hours, returning eight o'clock time for dinner with 
General Brugere- and Rochambeau Committee unless you prefer 
substitute luncheon next day Wednesday before going Versailles; din- 



been on the occasion of their graduation. Mr. Bacon chose " Glengarry" as the march- 
ing tune, and joyously President Roosevelt stepped forth. Suddenly recognizing the 
melody, it dawned upon him that it had been chosen for his benefit, and, turning to 
Mr. Bacon, he exclaimed, "Bob, you chose that!" 

'Musee Carnavalet or Musee Historique de la Ville, contains collections illustrating 
the history of Paris from the early Roman period, and the French Revolution. It was 
at one time the Hotel des Ligneris, and then the Hotel de Kernevenoy, from which 
the name of the museum is derived. During the last eighteen years of her life (1677- 
96) it was the residence of Madame de S6vigne. 

^Henri Joseph Brugere (1841-1918). General Brugere was Military Governor of 
Paris, 1 899-1 900; Vice-President of the Superior Council of War and Generalissimo 
(1900-1906). He was placed on the inactive list in 1906. At the outbreak of the 
World War he was, notwithstanding his advanced age, restored to active service; and 
in September, 1914, commanded a group of territorial divisions which aseisted in stop- 
ping the German drive between Amiens and Bethune. Among his numerous military 
writings is the classical treatise, la Tactique de Vartillerie. 



THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 143 

ner at Minister Foreign Affairs." Government wishes you lunch 
Versailles; Government also invites you all be their guests at hotel 
during your stay Paris but I have declined for you saying you were 
stopping Embassy. This is all pretty strenuous for you but I don't 
see how to cut it down and knowing your sense of humour and your 
pity for me I think you will have to stand it. 

A like process went on in all countries visited by the dis- 
tinguished traveller, and he needed a sense of humour as well 
as physical courage. These he had in abundance, as appears 
from his letter of April 5, 19 10, written upon receipt of the 
cable : 

Good heavens! But of course I stand pat and accept for every- 
thing. I very much doubt, however, whether Mrs. Roosevelt would 
be able to do all that you fix. For instance, after a day at Saumur I 
am sure that she cannot go to the Rochambeau Mission dinner if she 
is asked. But like the elder Mr. Weller's Thanksgiving turkey, I am 
old and tough, and I will be all right for everything. . . . 

Like most things "final" the programme opened and closed 
until it was over. A letter from the distinguished American 
novelist, Mrs. Edith Wharton, and a telegram from Mr. Bacon 
introduced modifications. The Colonel's letter of April loth 
deals with these things and an experience at Rome: 

The enclosed letter explains itself. Mrs. Wharton certainly has a 
most attractive set of people whom she wants me to meet, and I should 
greatly like to meet them at a lunch or a tea.^ Do tell her how much 
I should like to meet Victor Berard^ in especial, as I have read with 
intense delight his great book (barring the Hebrew and Phoenician 
texts with which it is cheerfully interspersed). I know you have 
made the programme pretty tight, but do leave enough for me to have 
a little leeway for such things as this tea at Mrs. Wharton's and for the 
few things we really ought to see. The day's trip to Saumur was the 

'Mrs. Edith Wharton (1862- ). One of the reasons for Mrs. Wharton's "most 
attractive set of people" was her distinction as a novelist. The best known of her 
works with which Mr. Roosevelt could have been familiar at the time of his visit to 
Paris were, The Valley of Decision (1902), The House of Mirth (1905). 

-Victor Berard (1864- ). A distinguished classical scholar and author of many 
works. Colonel Roosevelt doubtless referred to his two volume work, Les Pheniciens 
et rOdyssee (1902-1903). Among his more recent are Humanites et Democratie; La 
Serbie; L'Etemelle Allemagne, and Un Mensogne de la Science Allemande. 



144 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

one thing that I felt a little doubtful about. If you cannot arrange 
for Mrs. Wharton's proposed lunch or tea, could you not have her 
and some of her proposed guests at a lunch at your house, or arrange 
to have Jusserand to have them at lunch if he cared to? 

In a postscript in his own hand, he says: 

I am pleased that you are doubtful about Saumur; please give it 
up at once; it would be interesting, but we lack the time. All your 
other arrangements are excellent; and our real enjoyment depends 
on our having a little leeway. 

I have had an elegant row with the Pope, complicated by a side 
row with the Methodists, but I think the bulk of the American 
people are going to take my view; and if they don't, so much the 
worse for them for I followed the only proper course.^ 

The visit was a great success; the address at the Sorbonne 
was well received by those who heard it, criticised somewhat by 
those who failed to get in, and by some critics who feel that 
their mission in life is to criticise. The Colonel was unmoved 
by their shafts. He said in a letter of August 24th, after 
reaching home, 

I tell you. Bob, I was dead right on the race suicide question. The 
census returns show that in a decade or two more we shall be alongside 
of France in this matter. Well, thank heavens! there are still plenty 
of the really best citizens of the type of Mrs. Bacon and Mrs. Roose- 
velt! I hope you and I, Bob, are fairly decent citizens, but it is our 
wives who give us our real cause for pride! And we have very nice 
children, too! 

From Copenhagen, whither he and his party had gone, the 
Colonel wrote what is sometimes called a bread-and-butter 
letter, spiced with an amusing incident and a serious view of 
the future, 

Do tell dear Mrs. Bacon that I look back upon my stay In the Em- 
bassy at Paris as a perfect oasis, especially the breakfasts. At the 

'To understand this matter it need only be said that Colonel Roosevelt had very 
properly wanted to pay his respects to the Pope, upon his arrival in Rome. The Holy 
Father was pleased with this courtesy on the Colonel's part, but imposed the condi- 
tion that he should not meet the Methodists. The Colonel refused to accept this condi- 
tion and in the end he saw neither. For his own account of the "elegant row," see 
Joseph Bucklin Bishop's Theodore Roosevelt and His Time, vol. ii (1920), pp. 194-200. 



THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 145 

moment, I am writing In anything but a Christian spirit, because our 
baggage has thoughtfully gone by another train, and I bid fair to turn 
up at the palace to-night in what is called in Chicago a "business suit." 
Oh heavens! how I wish I were back at Sagamore Hill! This is a little 
ungrateful, as I am received everywhere here with as much wild 
enthusiasm as if I were on a Presidential tour at home; but I have too 
much to do, and I feel it is all foolishness anyhow, and I would like to 
be home. Where I have a definite thing to do, such as the lecture at 
the Sorbonne, why, it is all right; but I have exactly your feeling, that 
I want to be engaged in some real work, and not in a merely plush 
breeches form of entertainment. ^ 

It has been said that Mr. Bacon's problems in arranging a 
programme for Colonel Roosevelt were duplicated in the other 
capitals which he honoured with his presence. One example of 
this may be instanced, as it concerns Mr. Bacon as well as his 
illustrious countryman. 

Colonel Arthur Lee, one of their warmest friends, was trying 
to do in London what Mr. Bacon had done in Paris. Colonel 
Lee had written a letter to Mr. Bacon, asking if it would be 
agreeable if he should run over for a day or two to confer with 
them. The letter was overlooked in the hurry and bustle of the 
moment. Colonel Lee tried again: 

I hope my letter of the 3rd reached you safely, but not having 
heard from you further, I am a little anxious lest the somewhat in- 
considerate proposal I made, in response to your kind invitation, may 

^Colonel Roosevelt has given an interesting account of his stay in Paris. 

"From Vienna I went to Paris, where I joined Mrs. Roosevelt at the Bacons*. 
Bacon, old college friend of mine, was then, and is now [191 1], Ambassador to Paris. 
He and his wife are dear people, and staying with them was an oasis in a desert of hurry 
and confusion. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Paris, but by the end I began to feel 
jaded. Jusserand had come across the ocean to meet me. We are very fond of him. 
Frenchmen, thank heavens! do understand a liking for the things in life that are most 
interesting . . . 

Besides various formal functions such as dinner and receptions by the municipal 
government and by the Institute (of which I had been made a member and where, by 
the way, I genuinely enjoyed myself), I was also given two or three private breakfasts 
and dinners at which I met Briand, and various other members of the Government, and 
the Opposition, in intimate and informal fashion. These I especially liked. In 
France I also met a number of men of letters whom I had really wished to see, men like 
Victor Berard and De la Gorce and Boutrous. What a charming man a charming 
Frenchman is!" [Colonel Roosevelt to the Right Honourable Sir George Trevelyan, 
Bart. Letter written from Sagamore Hill, October i, 191 1. Contained in Joseph 
B. Bishop's Theodore Roosevelt and His Time (1920), vol. ii, pp. 231-233.] 



146 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

not have been convenient. I asked if I might come to you for next 
Saturday night — (23rd) in order to see Roosevelt on the Sunday. 
But since making that suggestion I have realized how hard driven 
you must be with the business of his visit — (I have a fellow-feeling 
about this!) and I am most anxious not to add to your trouble by 
getting in the way even for an unnecessary moment. At the same 
time I must see Roosevelt as he has now hung up the whole of his 
English programme until he can go through and revise it with me, 
and I get almost daily messages from him to this effect. 

So I think I must go over to Paris on Saturday in any case, arriving 
there 6.45 p. m. Then unless it should really be perfectly and entirely 
convenient for you to put me up that night I shall go to my usual hotel 
and not appear until such time on Sunday as Roosevelt can see me. 
Please understand that I suggest this alternative solely out of sym- 
pathy with your troubles which must be crowding thick and fast upon 
you as the tornado approaches! So I really count upon you to tell 
me, without hesitation, which plan will suit your convenience best. 

In any event, of course, please count me out of any entertainment or 
function on Saturday evening, as I should be of no use to any one 
there, and probably miserable into the bargain as my French is not 
even up to the standard of "Stratford-atte-Bowe." 

Please don't bother to write — a brief wire addressed "Optimistic, 
London" is all that is necessary. 

On this letter, Mr. Bacon wrote in pencil, "Come by all means 
on Saturday as proposed." The "Optimistic" telegram was 
doubtless sent, as Colonel Lee — destined to become the Right 
Honourable Viscount Lee of Fareham, after serving as First 
Lord of the Admiralty in Mr. Lloyd George's Cabinet — was put 
up that night in the Embassy, already filled to overflowing. 

With Colonel Lee came the distinguished portrait painter, de 
Laszlo, Hungarian by birth but British by naturalization. 
And notwithstanding the " final" programme, de Laszlo actually 
painted Colonel Roosevelt, the guest, and Mr. Bacon, the host. 
The portrait of Colonel Roosevelt, painted during hurried 
sittings in the early morning hours, before Paris was up and 
around, shows him worn and haggard, as he came from the 
wilds of Africa. Mr. Bacon's portrait shows the strain of 
worry and anxiety of those days, but it is Mr. Bacon as his 
family and friends knew him, and is the one chosen for Har- 
vard University. Of the two men, de Laszlo wrote, in August, 
1921: 



THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR 147 

Never shall I forget the hours I had the pleasure to spend in the late 
Robert Bacon's company. It was during the few days when the late 
President Roosevelt stayed in Paris with him. He had just returned 
from his glorious days in the various countries and Paris was thrilled 
with Roosevelt. It was then that I painted both the heads of Robert 
Bacon and, for him, Roosevelt. In the festival atmosphere of the 
American Embassy I had the sitting of the spontaneous, volcanic 
Roosevelt, and the distinguished Robert Bacon. . . . 

I love, as a portrait painter and a man, to think of Robert Bacon. 
He was the manifestation of a noble gentleman with a great heart and 
a great soul; beloved by everyone who came into contact with him, 
the most popular representative of his great country. . . . 

I am proud to have had the opportunity of painting him and that 
the replica of my portrait of him will hang on the walls of Harvard 
University as an example of one of America's greatest citizens. 



CHAPTER XI 

The "Friend of France" 
the baptism of america 

There is one incident during his ambassadorship of an 
official kind and yet of a personal nature which touched Mr. 
Bacon deeply at the time, and later during the stirring days of 
the war, and reveals the lasting impression which Mr. Bacon 
made upon the people of France. 

The little city of Saint-Die has a special interest for Ameri- 
cans, for in that place, in 1507, the name of America was given 
by a group of scholars to the New World. Four hundred years 
later the inhabitants of Saint-Die decided to celebrate on July 16, 
1911, the baptism of America. It had happened in this way. 

A few years after the discovery of the West Indies by Colum- 
bus, one Amerigo Vespucci, if his story is to be believed, 
reached the coast of what proved to be a new continent, on 
June 16, 1497, eight days before John Cabot. Vespucci was in 
a way the most fortunate of adventurers, for the notoriety, 
and indeed, the fame that comes from publicity, is his. He 
has given his name, or, rather, a little group of scholars of Saint- 
Die gave it, to the New World. It appears that the French 
text of one of two letters written by Vespucci describing his 
achievements had been sent from Lisbon to Rene II, Duke of 
Lorraine, a man of light and learning of that time. He turned 
it over to his chaplain and secretary, Vautrin Lud, who had in 
mind a collection of the views of the ancients on the subject of 
geography. He interested two scholars in the project: he 
sought and obtained the aid of two experts in geography, 
Mathias Ringmann and Martin Waldseemiiller. They were 
all members of an academy or society called the Gymnasium 
Vosgense, founded by Vautrin Lud and in which he was the 
leading spirit. A printing press was at hand and installed in 
the house of Nicolas Lud, the nephew. Everything was ready 
for the step, which was taken in the little city of Saint-Die and 



THE "FRIEND OF FRANCE" 149 

in the year 1507. A text of Ptolemy's geography was ob- 
tained, Amerigo's two letters had been published by two of 
their number, Ringmann and Basin. The undertaking was 
large and costly: it therefore occurred to them to issue a 
summary or prospectus, as it might be called. This they did 
under the title of "Cosmographiae Introductio." In this little 
work, of but a few printed pages, it is said: 

Now these parts are rather widely traversed and a fourth part was 
discovered by Americus Vespucius (which will be learned from that 
which follows). 

This is a statement of fact, and from this fact a conclusion 
is drawn. "I do not see why any one can rightfully oppose it 
being termed Amerigo, as if the land of Americus or America, 
by Americus the discoverer, a man of sagacious genius, since 
both Europe and Asia drew their names from their mothers." 

To quote an English rather than a French writer of authority : 
"Here we have perhaps the first suggestion in a printed book 
that the newly discovered fourth part of the world should be 
called 'America, because Americus discovered it.'"^ 

A year later, that is in 1508, a map of the world was issued 
in Saint-Die, which bore, for the first time, it is said, the name 
of America. 

The people of Saint-Die may have known of these things, Dut 
they were not impressed with the importance of the incident. 
With some Americans it was otherwise, and from the agitated 
new world the tranquil city of Saint-Die was moved to celebrate 
the event. This they did the 14th, 15th, and i6thof July, 191 1. 
The occasion was the placing of a plaque in the house which is 
still standing, in which the introduction to geography was 
printed, or as it is more figuratively expressed, in which America 
was "baptised," as stated in the inscription on the plaque: 

"Here the 25th of April 1507, in the reign of Rene II 

La Cosmographiae Introductio, in which the New Continent 

Received the Name of America, was printed and published by 

The members of the Gymnasium Vosagense 
Gauthier Lud, Nicolas Lud, Jean Basin, Mathias Ringmann 

and Martin Waldseemuller." 



^The Encyclopedia Britannica (nth ed., 1910), vol. xxvii, Article" Amerigo Vespucci." 



150 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

The ceremony would have been incomplete without the 
presence of the American Ambassador. He was there. The 
occasion was one of those gracious and courteous acts of taste 
and feeling for which the French are noted. Portraits of 
Lud Ringmann and Waldseemiiller were presented to the 
Government of the United States through its Ambassador. 

In accepting them Mr. Bacon said: 

The representative of the United States in France salutes with 
emotion these statues of Vautrin Lud, Chaplain of King Rene and the 
introducer of printing in Saint-Die, of the erudite Hellenist and 
Latinist Mathias Ringmann, and of the Cosmographer, Martin 
Waldseemiiller, which you have offered me for my Governnient. 
They are the statues of three men whose names are written in inef- 
faceable letters on the threshold of the Continent which was then 
recently discovered, but which was destined to become the theatre 
of such rapid and prodigious development that a French poet and 
thinker can say to-day with reason "The Old World is turning toward 
the New W^orld." 

At the dinner closing the ceremonies at which Mr. Bacon was 
the guest of honour he spoke more at length, "let himself out," 
if such an ordinary phrase can be applied to an ambassador 
extraordinary, and two passages from his address on this 
occasion found lodgment in the heart and memory of all 
present: 

After French Lorraine had bent over our cradle to give us a 
name, it was greater France who threw her sword in the balance to 
give us independence. My presence in your midst is evidence that 
America does not forget and reserves forever a special place in her 
affections for the picturesque Vosgean city of Saint-Die, and for 
beautiful France. . . . 

This old and picturesque City of Saint-Die, which has to-day 
extended to me such cordial and touching hospitality, was not only 
the place which held the baptismal font of the New World, but it 
was also a notable intellectual centre at a time when intellectual 
centres were not universal, and it had its share of influence in the 
great movement of intellectual expansion at the beginning of the 
sixteenth century. 

For you of France, it recalls a brilliant past, of which so many cities 
in your beautiful country bear witness, a country whose long historic 



THE "FRIEND OF FRANCE" 151 

existence has been so rich in memorable events. For us Americans it 
evokes memory of a peculiarly unique event, and the image of Saint- 
Die, where America received its name, holds a place in our hearts be- 
side that of Versailles, where America contracted with France an 
indissoluble aUiance!^ 

Years passed, France and the most civilized nations of 
Europe found themselves at war with Germany and its Allies, 
and what the people of Saint-Die could not have dreamed in 
191 1 and Mr. Bacon himself could not have foreseen, the 
America baptised at Saint-Die in 1507 entered the World 
War in 1917 on the side of its first and only ally. 

A committee of Saint Die-Amerique, 1507-1917, "organized 
to celebrate in an adequate manner the entry of America" into 
the war, prepared a report on -this historic event. In its open- 
ing paragraphs it quoted from Mr. Bacon's address three 
paragraphs in which he referred to the special claim which 
French Lorraine (it is all French to-day) has upon our affec- 
tion: its meaning to France and the indissoluble alliance which 
America contracted at Versailles with France. It continued: 

In these words Mr. Robert Bacon, Ambassador of the United 
States, greeted our City on July 16, 191 1, the day of the commemora- 
tion of the Baptism of America. At that time, Saint-Die celebrated 
an historical event too little known throughout the great American 
nation and even in France. For it was in the town of Saint-Die, in 

^In his address at Saint-Die, Mr. Bacon apparently referred to the unwritten alliance 
of common aim, of common purpose, of common sentiment, due to the participation of 
France in the independence of the United States. 

A written alliance there was, which is usually referred to as contracted at Versailles, 
although it appears to have been signed at Paris. If Mr. Bacon referred to this, he 
doubtless had in mind Articles 2 and ii, of the Treaty of February 6, 1778, to which 
his great predecessor, Benjamin Franklin, had put his hand and seal: 

The essential and direct end of the present defensive alliance is to maintain ef- 
fectually the liberty, sovereignty, and independence absolute and unlimited, of 
the said United States, as well in matters of government as of commerce. [.Arti- 
cle 2.] 

The two parties guarantee mutually from the present time and forever against all 
other powers, to wit: The United States to His Most Christian Majesty, the present 
possessions of the Crown of France in America, as well as those which it may acquire 
by the future treaty of peace: And His Most Christian Majesty guarantees on his part 
to the United States their liberty, sovereignty, and independence, absolute and un- 
limited, as well in matters of government as commerce . . . the whole as their 
possessions shall be fixed and assured to the said States, at the moment of the cessa- 
tion of their present war with England. [.Article 11.] 



152 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

the year 1507, that a Society of scholars, " Le Gymnase Vosgien** 
published a little book La Cosmographice Introduction the preface to a 
new edition of Ptolemy, in which/or the first time the name of America 
was printed and given to the New World. 

At the festival in honour of this memory, Mr. Robert Bacon, en- 
raptured and deeply touched by the tokens of affectionate sympathy 
with which he was surrounded, expressed his gratitude in an address 
which should be quoted in its entirety. 

The Report next describes the suffering and devastation 
which Saint-Die had endured: 

Several years have passed . . . years of suffering and of 
sorrow for France, brutally attacked and invaded. Saint-Die suf- 
fered the horrors of war — invasion, ruin, pillage, and seventy-six 
bombardments. The whizzing of the shells disturbed for months 
the great silence of the mountains, which formerly lent a frame of 
beautiful serenity to the erudite academy. 

The Report then expresses the joy which the entry of America 
into the war has given to France and especially to Saint-Die, 
and chronicles the creation of a committee adequately to 
commemorate this event, and the steps the committee had 
already taken: 

When several weeks ago America realized that the cause of law and 
liberty awaited its supreme and decisive act, that the hour had finally 
come for her to place herself in the ranks of the Entente, then a great 
wave of enthusiasm and hope passed over France. One might have 
said that a ray of sunlight pierced the storm, and since the people 
have only one symbol, the flag, by which to voice their joyful faith, 
the flags of the two sister republics fluttered side by side in countless 
numbers on both shores of the Atlantic. 

At Saint-Die the sympathy was perhaps still greater. In a spon- 
taneous movement of gratitude and admiration the Municipal Coun- 
cil immediately decided upon the creation of a committee, which by 
all possible means should endeavour to form an ever-closer bond 
between the city and the great friendly nation. 

Already this Committee has proposed to give American names to 
the principal streets of the city. Already it has decided to extend 
hospitality, from time to time, to the heroes of America, in order to 
acquaint them with the City of Baptism. By memorials of its past. 



THE "FRIEND OF FRANCE" 153 

by conferences, by visits to the American and Vosgian Museum, by 
the distribution of notices and illustrated cards, it will endeavour to 
stimulate more and more the sentiments of mutual esteem and sym- 
pathy. 

In order to express its thought more fully, it has also founded a 
journal, the Review Saint-Dte-Arnericay in which the past and present 
of the city will be set forth, in English and in French, in a limited text, 
accompanied by numerous illustrations. 

Finally, animated by the most generous intentions, the Committee, 

in spite of its modest resources, will try to prove to the young and 

valiant American army, and to its leaders, how greatly France is 

moved at the thought of the struggle in which they are going to engage 

for a noble cause. 

For the Committee: 

The President and Secretary General: 

Saint-Die, 1917. Ch. Peccatte. 

A decree of the Municipal Council of Saint-Die, dated 
May 24, 1917, gave the name of America to a street of the city. 

The report and the decree were sent to Mr. Bacon as the 
former Ambassador of the United States, under date of June i, 
1917. At that very moment he was on the high seas as a 
Major of the United States Army, on his way to France, to 
make good, as he would have said, "in his humble person," 
the indissoluble alliance which America contracted with 
France, in the City of Versailles, in the war for American in- 
dependence. 

During the war and again afterward Mr. Bacon visited the 
stricken little French town which gave the name of America to 
the world. It was an experience which touched him deeply. 
The tranquil, peaceful Saint-Die before the war was wrecked 
by numerous bombardments, and its people were scattered. 
Mr. Bacon took part in the movement to restore the stricken 
city and he became again in the eyes of the French people the 
personification of friendship between his country and theirs. 

DIPLOMATIC COLLEAGUES 

Unless in a crisis, the measure of a diplomat's service to his 
country is the atmosphere of good will which he creates, which 
insensibly slides into a friendly feeling, at least of the governing 
classes, for the country which he represents. How this good 



154 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

will and friendly feeling are engendered is a secret which each 
must divine for himself. It cannot be learned in books. 
It cannot be taught or communicated. It can only come from 
the man himself. Mr. Bacon did what diplomats ordinarily do : 
he gave dinners, receptions, musicals, and dances. He com- 
plied with all the social standards and requirements. He took 
an interest in the art of France, and established prizes for the 
Beaux-Arts; he took an interest in music and literature; he 
associated with their votaries. He did not restrict himself to 
any class or classes. He felt that he represented the Ameri- 
can people to the people of France; he interested himself in 
them and tried to understand the problems of France, the life 
of the people, the spirit of France. But Mr. Bacon regarded 
his task as larger than that. He represented the United 
States to the diplomatic corps and their respective peoples. 
He wanted to make a good impression on his colleagues, not 
merely because he Hked them and wanted to be liked in return, 
but because their opinions of him might affect* the attitude 
of their respective governments toward the United States. 
Many instances might be given of his relations to his colleagues. 
It is common knowledge that during the Russo-Japanese War 
the sympathy of the American people went out to Japan, which 
seemed to many to be courting destruction in challenging the 
redoubtable power of Russia. Whether the Russian people and 
the Russian Government had cause for offence at this attitude 
is unimportant in this connection. It is enough to say that 
the friendly relations between the United States and Russia 
were henceforward correct in form but unfriendly in fact. 

A line from a letter written by Mrs. Bacon at the time states 
the situation: "The new Russian Ambassador, who, I hear, 
looks upon us as enemies (because Americans) has arrived, and 
last night Mr. Bacon dined with ... to meet him . . . 
But the impression Mr. B, got from Isvolsky's manner was 
that it would take all our ingenuity to make a friend of him."^ 

'Alexander Petrovich Isvolsky (1856-1919). After a distinguished diplomatic 
career he became Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia (1906), resigning that position 
four years later to become Russian Ambassador to Paris. 

Of him as Minister of Foreign Affairs and as a diplomatist, it is said by a competent 
authority, 

"Slowly he restored the national prestige, for he asserted loyalty to France as the 
first principle of policy ... An accomplished man of letters, a competent critic 



THE "FRIEND OF FRANCE" 155 

In the course of time Mr. Isvolsky became one of Mr. 
Bacon's closest friends, and no foreign diplomat was a more 
constant caller at the Embassy or a more frequent guest 
than the distinguished Russian Ambassador. 

Mr. Bacon regarded it as his duty not merely to make, but to 
keep, friends. In Washington, he was on the best of terms with 
the Latin-American representatives, who looked upon him as 
almost one of themselves. In Paris, Mr. Bacon convinced 
them that he was indeed one of them, and they came to share 
his view, that the American representatives formed, as it were, 
a group by themselves. They looked upon Mr. Bacon as the 
elder brother with whom they could advise; his time was 
always at their service and his house open to them on all 
occasions. 

Their anniversaries were our anniversaries, and ours were 
theirs. On May 25, 1910, the Argentine Minister celebrated 
with Parisian colleagues the first hundred years of his coun- 
try's independence. Mr. Bacon attended and spoke at the 
gathering: and he spoke from their point of view. The address 
is one that might have been written by an Argentinean or by a 
North American domiciled in Buenos Aires, intent upon show- 
ing that the principles for which his countrymen stand were 
shared by the people of Argentina; that although both drew 
from different sources, the outcome was largely the same, so 
that it could properly be said that all Americans had a common 
interest and a common pride in a growth and experience com- 
mon to all. 

We of the north are too prone to discover ourselves to our 
neighbours to the south and ask them to follow us, instead of 
attempting to discover in them reasons why we can face the 
future abreast. Here is the way Mr. Bacon continued his 
address and developed his point of view: 

In no modern nations do we find traditions of independence more 
deep rooted than in the republics of South America. Long before 
the Puritan ancestors of the first New England colonists had conceived 
the religious dissent that led them across the seas in search of liberty 



of art, a linguist of rare perfection and charming in manner . . . he was certainly 
one of the chief diplomatic personages in the reign of the last of the tsars." [Ency- 
clopcedia Britannica, vol. xxxi (i2th edition, 1922), p. 595.] 



156 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

the roots of South American independence are found in those ancient 
municipalities of Spain which survived invasions of Visigoths and 
Saracens, keeping aHve, in the midst of currents of war and changing 
sovereignties, the principles of local self-government. In the 14th and 
Kth centuries, the period of discovery and conquest, Spain was a 
federation of self-governing communes and provinces whose inde- 
pendence was finally destroyed by the Hapsburgs. 

This was the situation from which Mr. Bacon draws conse- 
quences not unlike those that flow from traditions in old New 
England: 

When, therefore, in the i6th century, Charles V was stamping out 
freedom in Spain by military force, the adventurous colonists of 
Argentina brought with them to America their ancient principles and 
instincts of individual hberty, intensified by the conviction that the 
central government was inimical to those principles. Although, 
therefore, the thirteen colonies in North America, which revolted 
from England, were first to declare their independence, they were no 
more anciently nor truly inspired with the principles of freedom than 
the Spanish-American colonies of South America. The New England 
farmer who seriously but gladly forsook his plough for his musket in 
1776 was brother in spirit to the "gaucho" of the Pampas who fol- 
lowed Belgrano at Tucuman. It is a tribute to our Constitution of 
1787 that it should have been taken as their model by the Argentine 
patriots in the Constitutional Congress, when, on May i, 1853, they 
framed the fundamental law of their new Republic. 

The event, therefore, which we celebrate here to-day cannot fail to 
awaken responsive sympathy in all Americans, for the Sister Re- 
publics of the Western Hemisphere have shared a similar experience 
in the declarations of their independence from what were at the time 
arbitrary and tyrannical European sovereignties, and they stand 
together to-day for the principle of government by, for, and of the 
people. 

Here is identity without priority, appreciation without con- 
descension; a definite hope for a common future: 

Is it not for them to broaden the principles which each has striven 
to perpetuate within its own borders in the relations of each Republic 
with its neighbours? Democracy should not be limited by political 
boundaries; there may be in seyitiment an International Republic of 
democratic nations pledged to the same principles, actuated by 




Theodore Roosevelt 
Portrait by Laszlo, painted at the American Embassy after his re- 
turn from Africa 



THE "FRIEND OF FRANCE" 157 

similar motives, and, though mutually emulative and competitive, 
mutually respecting and supporting. 

Modern means of communication and transport, particularly the 
miraculous achievements of aviation, have made national isolation 
impossible; it has long since ceased to be desirable. The Republics 
of North and South America are now as near together in space and 
time as were the citizens of the same state 75 years ago: it seems 
most fitting and natural that they should likewise draw together in 
sentiment. 

With increased intercommunication the barriers of mutual ignor- 
ance which have in the past separated the nations of America must 
eventually disappear, and in their place become established bonds of 
understanding, intelligent fellowship, appreciation, and sympathy. 

It has been well said that: "In isolation, men, communities, nations, 
tend back toward savagery. Repellent differences and dislikes sepa- 
rate them from mankind. In association, similarities and attractions 
are felt and differences are forgotten. There is so much more good than 
evil in men that liking comes by knowing."^ Thus, then, as the ultimate 
expression of the independence won a hundred years ago, may come 
the linking together again of governments in an international public 
opinion mightier than armaments, animated by humanitarian ideals 
and dedicated to the maintenance of righteous peace. 

But enough has been quoted of this address to show how 
Mr. Bacon reached a hand from the North to the brother of the 
South, and how he showed himself inspired by similar tradi- 
tions, an advocate of the same form of government, and hope- 
ful of a common future. 

In 1910, 191 1, and 191 2, Mr. Bacon acted as host to his 
Latin-American colleagues in France on Washington's birth- 
day. It was natural that he should speak more of the North 
than the South in the remarks which he made on these occa- 
sions. But he made his guests feel that it was a family gather- 
ing, because they were sons of America. 

Some passages from his address delivered at the first of these 
luncheons, in 19 10, may be given by way of sample. The 
Enghsh text, if Mr. Bacon originally prepared his remarks in 
English, has been lost, and the reader will have to put up with 
a somewhat free translation from Mr. Bacon's Spanish copy. 

1" Address at the Dedication of the Building of the Pan-American Union," Washing- 
ton, D. C, April 26, 1910. Addresses by Elihii Root, Latin America and the United 
States (1917), pp. 231, 2;i;i. 



158 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

"A little more than a year ago, in Washington, it was my 
privilege," he said, "to bring together the representatives of 
Latin America at a dinner to celebrate the friendly and personal 
relations which I had the good fortune to maintain with them 
in the course of the interesting negotiations concluded by my 
great master Mr. Root to strengthen day by_ day the bonds 
which unite the Republics of the west as veritable sisters in- 
spired by a common desire to obtain a mutual advantage. 
Then I addressed my guests as fellow citizens, and rightly, 
given the brotherly nature of our associations. Notwithstand- 
ing that more than a year has passed with its changes and 
vicissitudes, that foregathering seems as if it were a thing of 
yesterday, and I find it hard to convince myself that the lunch- 
eon of to-day is not the continuation of the other which I 
shall never forget. As I look upon the guests here assembled 
I do indeed see new faces, but not less kindly, and I feel as on 
the former occasion, among friends and more than friends — 
compatriots. I use this phrase with a great and peculiar 
pleasure, for we are all in very truth loyal children of a com- 
mon country, nations under the benign stars of political inde- 
pendence and of personal liberty, taught by a common history, 
proud of the glorious deeds of the heroes and statesmen who 
have discovered our countries and formed our civilization, and 
animated by the unalterable purpose to prove ourselves worthy 
of the name of Americans." 

Very briefly, and in passing, he mentions that it is Washing- 
ton's birthday, that he may unite with the name of Washing- 
ton the name of the two great founders of Latin-American 
liberty, San Martin and Bolivar.^ Then, with characteristic 
tact, he associates the country, to which they were all ac- 
credited, with the occasion: 

We are met in a country far from our firesides, but which all Ameri- 
cans cherish in their hearts, because la belle France has fought 
shoulder to shoulder with the Americans, across the sea in defense of 
the rights of man, and in the long course of years, has conquered the 
noble inheritance of liberty, united with equality and fraternity. 

>Jose de San Martin (1778-1850). This Argentinean soldier and statesman secured 
the independence of the southern portion of South America, leaving to Simon Bolivar 
(1783-1830) the task and the glory of securing the independence of the north. With 
the exception of Brazil, the independence of South America is due to one or other of 
these two remarkable men. 



THE "FRIEND OF FRANCE" 159 

Mr. Bacon then referred to the effort on the part of enlight- 
ened Frenchmen, brothers and fellow-workers in the same field, 
who have sought to promote good will between the Old World 
and the New World of Columbus. He gracefully referred to 
the sad privilege it had been to make common cause with the 
Parisians in the days of the flood which had barely subsided, 
to share their fears and their suffering, and to rejoice in the 
passing of the tragedy. Then with the skill of sincerity he 
concluded with a toast "to Franco-American understanding," 
saying: 

Gentlemen, I speak to you from the heart. I have spent a large 
part of my life in creating and strengthening the bonds of friendship 
and of confidence between the country which has sent me here as its 
representative and the Sister Republics of the West. If I could live 
my life over again, I should gladly devote it to the same purpose, 
convinced as I am that there is no higher mission than to advance the 
cause of peace in the world and of good will among its peoples. I am 
equally convinced that we should all work toward a common end, 
carrying into* effect* the aims and purposes for which the Society of 
France — Amerique — has been formed. 

The third and last address on Washington's birthday, on the 
eve of his departure from France, pursues the same theme with- 
out, however, duplicating or suggesting the earlier ones. 
The anniversar)r which they are celebrating "is more than a 
national, more than an American, it is an international fete. 
Washington is destined forever to remain for all time the type 
of the Great Cit-izen, and for all time to serve as an example to 
our free Republics." And he continued: 

To you, my friends and colleagues, who share with me the signal 
honour of representing America in this great and beautiful France, I 
thank you in the name of my country and from the bottom of my 
heart for joining me with such ardour in celebrating the anniversary of 
the birth of this great man whose memory the United States venerate 
and love, and will always cherish. 

His glory is likewise yours, for America Is one, and one in claiming 
its glories, whether they come from North, Central, or South Amer- 
ica. . . . 

In proposing a toast to the Immortal memory of Washington, and to 
the memory of all your liberators, I ask you to raise your glasses and 



i6o ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

with me to drink to the day on which all the countries of America 
knowing one another better and because of that appreciating one 
another the more, shall march hand in hand in the path of progress 
toward the ideal of humanity, onward and ever forward toward lib- 
erty and toward the light !— America. 

Mr. Bacon on these occasions spoke from a deep conviction 
and in the presence of men whose ears coveted commendation 
and whose eyes searched the heart of the speaker to see that his 
words rang true. They were delivered under great emotion, 
as Mr. Bacon stood before them for the last time as friend and 
colleague, for his days as Ambassador were numbered. 

Mr. Peralta, Minister from Costa Rica, expressed the regret 
of his colleagues that they were to lose Mr. Bacon, saying: 

It is with the most profound regret to-day that we leave this 
hospitable mansion, for we know that its illustrious host is soon to 
leave us. But, Mr. Ambassador, wherever you may go, our ardent 
sympathy will always follow you. We pray God that your presence 
in the Athens of the West and in Harvard University may be as pleas- 
ing to you as it will be profitable to your fellow-countrymen and to 
all who are interested in the development and prosperity of that great 
scientific centre. 

RESIGNATION 

Mr. Bacon had resigned. He only awaited his successor 
in order to take up his duties as Fellow of Harvard University 
to which he had been elected. Mr. Bacon's reason for with- 
drawal from the Paris post was purely personal. He coveted 
the position of Fellow of his University, and he could not be 
Ambassador of the United States in France and Fellow of 
Harvard University in Cambridge at one and the same time. 
He had rendered service in France, and it did not seem likely 
in 191 2 that the American Ambassador would be called upon 
but two years later to face a crisis and render extraordinary 
service. Otherwise, he would undoubtedly have refused the 
Fellowship and stayed. As it was, he accepted. He had 
pleased the authorities at home. President Taft saying as 
early as July 15, 1910; 

You are doing finely in Paris and we were never more satisfactorily 
represented there. 



THE "FRIEND OF FRANCE" i6i 

On January 2, 191 2, Mr. Bacon sent a personal letter to the 
President, which gives the reasons for the step he was about to 
I ake ; 

The President and Fellows of Harvard, the Corporation so called, 
have made me a Fellow to fill the vacancy in their number caused 
by the death of Judge Lowell of Boston. This service to my Alma 
Mater I feel that I cannot decline, besides being naturally very 
proud to be given the honor of this — our Harvard "Blue Ribbon." 
This appointment is, as you know, one of active service for life, and, 
as there is much work to be done every week, the Corporation must 
be in close touch with Cambridge and live within easy reach. For this 
reason I am obliged most reluctantly to tender my resignation as your 
Ambassador to France. 

"My regret is very sincere," he continued, after an expression 
of personal gratitude, "but you will understand better than 
anybody the strength of my associations and my loyalty to my 
college, and my unwillingness to decline the honour of her 
service." President Taft would indeed understand, because 
he was as devoted a son of Yale as Mr. Bacon was of Harvard. 

Mr. Bacon had no intention of cutting himself off from the 
world and leading the life of a recluse. Service to any and 
every good cause, preferably pubHc, was the passion of his life, 

Although giving up the foreign service for this reason, I have a 
strong desire to take part at home, even in some small way, in the good 
work to be done there, whether it be civic, financial, or industrial. . . 
My resignation, of course, will be at your pleasure, and I feel sure 
that President Lowell, although he has been unable to delay longer 
my appointment, will be willing to excuse me until such time as it 
may be convenient for you to appoint my successor. 

On January 12th, President Taft answered this personal 
letter by one written in his own hand, 

I greatly regret accepting your resignation but I admit the weight 
of your reason for tendering it. I have a letter from President Lowell 
in which he insists that Harvard is entitled to divide with the Govern- 
ment your services. I yield. 

I am glad you have been two years our representative in Paris. I 
am glad that you have enjoyed it. You have done everything well. 



1 52 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

I hope and believe that your career at home will be equally successful 
and useful. I accept your resignation to take effect upon the ap- 
pointment and qualification of your successor. 

Two days later, on January 14th, Secretary of State Knox 
said in an official cable, in his own name and in behalf of the 
President: 

We both deeply regret your decision and feel that your resignation 
will be a great loss to the diplomatic service. 

The administration was in no hurry to have Mr. Bacon come 
home, and the authorities took time to find a worthy successor. 
In this they succeeded. When the choice had been made. 
President Taft wrote with his own hand the following letter, 
which shows what the relations of President and Ambassador 
may sometimes be. 

The White House 
Washington, Feb'y. 8, 1912. 
My dear Bob, 

I have your note of the 25th of January. I have named Myron 
Herrick as your successor. I think he may wish to delay here a little 
longer than is usual in such cases; but do not you feel embarrassed by 
this. I think you will find that Herrick will be glad to take your 
house off your hands especially if you can let him have the furniture 
for a year. However you can open correspondence with him at once 
on the subject and know more definitely than I can tell you what the 
case is. 

I am sorry to lose you, old man, but you are going into good work. 
My warm regards to Mrs. Bacon in which Mrs. Taft joins me. 

Sincerely yours, 

Wm. H. Taft. 
The Hon. Robert Bacon 
American Ambassador. 



President Taft's view was shared by other friends of Mr. 
Bacon, in diflPerent walks of life. The oldest of them. Colonel 
Roosevelt, wrote him from New York under date of January 
22nd, 



THE "FRIEND OF FRANCE" 163 

Dear Bob, 

I am very glad you decided as you did. I think it was the only 
wise way to decide. You are an admirable ambassador, but there is 
any amount of work outside which is to my mind better worth doing, 
and which you can do; and which even the men fit to be first-class 
ambassadors cannot do. Of course I am personally very glad you 
are to be back on this side. 

Mr. Charles D. Norton, who had been Secretary to Presi- 
dent Taft, but who had betaken himself to Wall Street, wrote a 
few days later, on the 30th, 

I have noted, with the rest of the world, your exchange of letters 
with the President, and I do most heartily congratulate you on step- 
ping from the distinguished honours and the unsubstantial joys of the 
Diplomatic Service into the finest opportunity for service that can 
come to an American business man. 

And on February 2nd, Mr. Frank D. Millet, the distin- 
guished painter who was lost with the Titanic^ from which fate 
Mr. Bacon escaped, he afterward said, as through a miracle, 
wrote in one of his last letters, 

My dear Bacon: 

While I was on the ocean, and a very turbulent ocean it was, too, 
your correspondence with the President was published and I did not 
see it until to-day. 

Of course I must be glad that Harvard [Mr. Millet was of that 
college] will have the benefit of your services and of course I am very 
sorry that your activities in government work will necessarily cease. 
But I can conceive of no more useful work than that you will do in the 
Corporation of Harvard and for that I sincerely congratulate you on 
your decision and Harvard on its choice. 

In the absence of an official residence the American repre- 
sentative — be he Ambassador or Minister — has to find his 
quarters, and take them subject to having them left on his 
hands, as he does not and cannot know when his missiqn will 
end. Mr. Bacon was fortunate in getting the lease of Mr. 
White's house, and in being able to hand it over to Mr. Herrick. 

The news of Mr. Bacon's election as Fellow, coupled with the 
statement that he would have to resign, appeared in the 



1 64 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Boston press on January loth. He was asked by the Press if 
this were so and, as he said in a cable of the i ith, to the Secre- 
tary of State, " I have been obliged to-day to admit the truth 
of the statement to the Associated Press." This was annoying 
to Mr. Bacon for the double reason that the announcement of 
changes in the diplomatic service should come from the White 
House or Department of State, and that pubhc statements of 
any kind were distasteful to him. However, the announce- 
ment was out and Mr. Bacon's anxiety was now to regularize 
the httle incident as quickly as possible. He therefore con- 
tinued, 

I have written a personal letter to the President which should have 
been received yesterday. Will you kindly in my behalf ask the 
President's consent that the substance of my letter to him be given 
to the Press. 

And he concluded, 

I can only add to you, Sir, my sincere regret at leaving the service 
of the Department and my warmest thanks for your kindness and 
never-failing courtesy and consideration. 

Secretary Knox at once complied, and gave out not merely 
Mr. Bacon's letter, but the text of the President's as well.^ 
Therefore, everybody in Paris who read the papers knew that 
Mr. Bacon was shortly to leave, and everybody who took in- 
terest in foreign affairs or had met Mr. Bacon during the course 
of his Ambassadorship was anxious to do him honour. And of 
the many manifestations — to use the French expression of 
personal regard, good will, and friendship — one may be men- 
tioned. It was a reception given to Mr. Bacon by the French 
group of the Interparliamentary Union for International 
Arbitration. Its members were members of the French Senate 
and Chamber of Deputies. 

The reception was held on March 5, 191 2, in the Senate 
Chapel. Some six or seven hundred guests were present, 
including Monsieur Raymond Poincare, then and now Presi- 
dent of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs, former 

'See New York Sun, January 14, 191 2, p. 7. Printed in part in the New York Times, 
January 14th, p. 4. 



THE "FRIEND OF FRANCE" 165 

President Loubet, Monsieur Briand, former Premier, the 
sculptor Rodin, and other leaders in thought, art, literature, 
science, and politics. Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, as 
president of the group, welcomed Mr. Bacon. "You are," 
he said, "our friend," and amid great applause he continued, 
"you are a friend of France, and in consequence a friend of 
Justice. You have never separated the two words. You, as 
we, are a believer in the cooperation of the two countries not 
only in the past but in the future. Our two Sister Republics 
will not be false to their destiny; they will remain associated 
to assure the triumph of right in the world. "^ He then an- 
nounced that the sculptor, Rodin, ^ would present to Mr. 
Bacon, on behalf of the group, a bronze by Rodin himself, 
entitled "Une ombre de I'Enfer," from Dante's Inferno^ and 
that the President of the Senate would offer Mrs. Bacon, on 
behalf of the group, a medal designed by the painter, Carriere.^ 
In his reply, which the report of the proceedings says was 
delivered in excellent French, Mr. Bacon naturally spoke of 
the bonds uniting the two countries, and never did ambassador 
speak more truly, although he could not know the truth of his 
words would be so soon demonstrated and that he himself 
would be called upon to make good his claim as a friend of 
France not merely in x'\merica, but in France. 

"I associate myself," he said, "with all my heart with the senti- 
ments which have been so admirably expressed by your eminent 
President, and, like him, I beHeve in the advantages to accrue through 
the association of the Sister Republics in their progress toward the 
ideal of humanity, toward greater liberty and light, for the triumph 
of right in the world, substituting the appeal to justice for the appeal 
to force. 



^Concilation Internationale. Lamite Franco- Amcricaine, Bulletin Trimestriel No. 3, 
(1912), p. 37. 

^Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). Noted French sculptor and one of the greatest 
masters of modern times. Among his many works may be mentioned "The Burgesses 
of Calais"; "The Thinker"; and *'The Kiss" (representing Paolo Malatesta and 
Francesca da Rimini). The year before his death he presented to France all the works 
remaining in his possession. 

^Eugene Carriere (i 849-1 906). French painter. Among his most celebrated paint- 
ings are "Christ on the Cross," "Theatre de Belleville," and groups of mothers and 
children. For his career and characteristics see an article by Mrs. Arthur Bell in 
The Art Journal (1906), p. 325. 



i66 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

"I have the intimate conviction that the clouds of distrust and skep- 
ticism will disappear, that a pure day is beginning to dawn and that 
in a near future we shall see the nations marching toward an interna- 
tional public opinion which is, no matter what people may say, the 
most effective sanction of international law. 

"The title of friend of France which you award me, my dear Presi- 
dent and friend, does more than touch me deeply. I am proud of it, 
for I have tried to merit it in the past and I can assure you that in 
leaving with greater regret that I know how to express, this marvel- 
lous Paris and your beautiful country, I do so a greater friend of 
France than the friend who came to you two years ago. Upon my 
return to my country I shall claim my place among those of my 
fellow citizens who have it at heart to be, in a certain sense, unofficial 
Ambassadors of France."^ 

The closing words of Monsieur Raymond Poincare were also 
very happy in reference to Mr. Bacon's knowledge of and in- 
terest in France and the future relations of their countries: 

Knowing you and visiting you in your own home, we have had the 
added pleasure of finding in you an enlightened lover of French 
literature and of French art, a student marvellously familiar with the 
slightest details of our national history, and you have proved without 
difficulty that your friendship for France rests upon a faithful and 
careful study of things French. 

You will leave in Paris, Mr. Ambassador, a memory which will not 
be forgotten. In parting from you we have at least the consolation 
of feeling that upon your return to the great American Republic you 
will there, according to your own charming phrase, be an unofficial 
representative of French ideas. 

Thus you will help us — and we thank you in advance — to main- 
tain and to strengthen the relations of the two nations whose cordiality 
has never been denied and which can contribute effectively in the 
future to the peace of the world and the progress of civilization.^ 

Had it not been for a sense of kindly consideration and of 
honourable obligation to his successor, Mr. Bacon might never 
have reached home. As President Taft had said, Mr. Herrick 
was not ready to proceed to his post as early as was usual. 
The new Ambassador was anxious to meet and talk matters 

^Concilation Internationale, p. 39, 
Hbid., p. 42. 



THE "FRIEND OF FRANCE'* 167 

over with Mr. Bacon before the retiring Ambassador left. 
Mr. Bacon therefore put off his going, and cancelled at the very 
last moment his sailing on the Titanic^ which was lost in mid- 
ocean on April 14, 191 2. The details are given in a few sen- 
tences from Mr. Herrick's letter of April 22, 191 2: 

We dined for the first time in your old home and our new one to- 
night, enfamille. We found the beautiful flowers that you and Mrs. 
Bacon were so thoughtful to send and the conversation for the dinner — 
in fact until I now find myself in jowr room — was of you, Mrs. Bacon, 
and your delightful daughter. We even loved the little dog, and I 
am sure that you never made or never will make a more complete 
conquest than you have of the Herrick family. 

Of course you know that I've always thought you a most desirable 
citizen and have always admired Mrs. Bacon. It had not been my 
good fortune to know your daughter, but the vivid picture in my mind 
of you all on board the fated Titanic through a little selfishness on our 
part or through a little nervous fear of precedent has affected me more 
than I can tell you. It has compassed years of association and warmed 
our hearts with lasting affection for you all and our thoughts, hopes, and 
ambitions for the new life upon the threshold of which we are to-night 
are all lost in thanksgiving for your deliverance from the cruel sea and 
our prayers are for your safe voyage on La France. . . . Had fate 
decreed you and your lovely family to have sailed out on the Titanic^ 
France would have held no happiness for us. 



PART VI 

FELLOW OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 

/ have a letter from President Lowell in which he insists that 
Harvard is entitled to divide with the Government your services. 
I yield. 

William Howard Taft. 



1 



CHAPTER XII 

In Service to Harvard 

Mr. Bacon never lost interest in Harvard College and the 
noble University, of which in his own days the college became 
a part. Commencement Day was not with him a day of 
beginning life and of ending relations with the college, as is 
often the case. It was the commencement of service to the 
college and university which became larger, more varied, and 
more important as the years brought wisdom and wealth and 
opportunity. Mr. Bacon appreciated and cherished the posi- 
tion of Fellow of Harvard University, not merely because of its 
distinction in academic circles, but because it was one of serv- 
ice to his university. "The condition of a nation," Mr. 
Bacon once said, "can be judged very accurately by the condi- 
tions existing at its typical colleges. When we know what and 
how the young men of a country are taught and the attitude 
they assume toward the acquisition of knowledge, we can form 
a conception of the spirit of a people which will not be far from 
the truth. "1 

Mr. Bacon devoted himself with characteristic zeal to the 
details of the administration of the college and university. A 
few words should be said on the subject. 

The president and members of the various Harvard facul- 
ties discuss questions of academic policy, and are an advisory 
body or assembly to the President. The President and Fel- 
lows, seven in number, form the corporation of the college and 
the governing Board. They also form a cabinet or council to 
the President, in which he has deservedly great influence, but 
not a deciding vote. The Overseers are composed of alumni 
of the college or university, and are elected by their fellow 
alumni. Of this body Mr. Bacon was for eighteen years a 



^For Belter Relations with Our Latin American Neighbours — A Journey to South 
America. Robert Bacon (1916), pp. 16-17, 

171 



172 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

member — from 1889 to 1901 and from 1902 to 1908. The 
plans and measures of the President and Fellows are submitted 
to the Overseers, where they are considered and confirmed in 
most, if not all cases. The Fellows meet on Mondays through- 
out the college year. Mr. Bacon made it a habit to spend 
several days of every week in Boston and Cambridge in touch 
with the administrative officers and the teachers of the Uni- 
versity, in order that he might obtain at first hand information 
which would be useful to him and to his colleagues in the per- 
formance of their duties. This activity on his part was greatly 
appreciated. Indeed it was found to be of such benefit to 
the university that his successor was chosen with the under- 
standing that he should emulate Mr. Bacon in this respect. 

This fact is enough in itself to demonstrate the value of 
Mr. Bacon's services as Fellow, but a word from President 
Lowell,^ the best qualified of all persons to judge, will be 
appropriate: 

He gave more time than any other member, was full of energy, 
promoting new things and aiding old ones; always full of life and 
geniality: bringing to bear with simplicity and sympathy his wide 
knowledge of men and experience of affairs. 

The work of a Fellow is behind closed doors and it does not 
reach the public. This was particularly the case with Mr. 
Bacon, who kept out of the papers as much as possible; and 
who preferred to send a short telegram instead of a letter, if the 
former would serve the purpose. President Lowell has re- 
cently looked up the records of the University and writes that 
" from Mr. Bacon himself there is little but telegrams about his 
acceptance of the place on the Corporation and his resignation 
of it later."^ 

In the course of the letter, already quoted. President Lowell 
took occasion to speak at some length of Mr. Bacon and his 
services as Fellow: 

Although he was not on the Board a great many years, they were 
large and various. His greatest special, tangible services were in 

^Letter of President Lowell to Mrs. Bacon, dated June 3, 1919. 
^Letter of President Lowell to James Brown Scott, dated April i, 1921. 




Robert Bacox, Ambassador io France 



IN SERVICE TO HARVARD 173 

connection with the Engineering School, the School of Business Ad- 
ministration, and above all, the University Press. Before others he 
saw very clearly the necessity for a university, of the publication of 
scholarly works that could not have a popular sale. He therefore 
offered to guarantee for a number of years a certain sum for the ex- 
penses of a Harvard University Press, and himself became a member 
of the Board of Syndics to conduct its operations. This was charac- 
teristic of him. When he saw something to be done he not only saw it, 
but took an active part in it by giving both money and time. . . . 
He devoted time without stint to the University; was constantly 
coming to Cambridge; talking with me, with the professors, and with 
everybody. Gentle and conciliatory, but very clear in his views, he 
exerted by his good sense just the kind of influence that a member of 
the Corporation can beneficently exert; and indeed, it was not merely 
by giving money and time, but by the spirit that he put into things 
and by his high sense of public duty that he strengthened the senti- 
ment of a great institution which exists for the public good. 

Mr. Bacon gave of his time and thought to Harvard, and 
many are the items among his papers to show that he gave 
generously of his money. He shunned publicity in this, as 
in other matters, to such a degree that few knew the extent of 
the guarantees which he assumed and of the sums which from 
time to time he advanced to meet a temporary need of the 
college or university. 

While Mr. Bacon was interested in the university as a whole, 
he had no desire to create a fund or erect a building which 
should bear or perpetuate his name. Nevertheless, he founded a 
Chair in the medical school in honour of a classmate. Dr. Henry- 
Jackson, of Boston.^ He proposed the beautiful site for the 
*"8o gate," and supplied the money to such an extent that it 
was well nigh a personal gift. This gift now adorns the college 
grounds in commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of 
the graduation of the Class of 1880, of which Colonel Roosevelt 
and he were the most distinguished members. Their two 



*Dr. Henry Jackson, referred to in an earlier part of the present volume as Mr. Bacon's 
college chum and life-long friend, refused to accept the Chair in his honour. The money 
was therefore given in honour of Doctor Jackson's father, long honourably connected 
with the University, and the income is used to provide a suitable annual salary for 
the Curator of the Anatomical Museum and for maintaining its efficiency as an aid to 
medical and surgical education and research, in such manner as is recommended from 
time to time by the Faculty of the Harvard Medical School. 



174 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

names are now appropriately Inscribed on tablets at the sides. 
He was also the inspiration of the Harvard Press, which his 
generosity made possible. 

These are merely samples of a few of his many unknown 
benefactions. ''Do what good Thou canst unknown; and 
be not vain of what ought rather to be felt, than seen," as 
Mr. Bacon's spiritual guide and constant companion puts it in 
Some Fruits of Solitude.^ Mr. Bacon's chief interest, however, 
was in the human side of the University, especially the teachers 
and their welfare. 

When Bishop Lawrence, then President of the Harvard 
Alumni, proposed an endowment fund for the University, it was, 
as Bishop Lawrence has said, Mr. Bacon who suggested that 
the fund should be for the teachers, not for brick and mortar 
or even for scholarly or scientific equipment. The statement 
of the aims and purposes of the proposed endowment fund 
voiced Mr. Bacon's views. It is in part: 

Harvard College needs large endowment for the support of its 
teaching force. The primacy of Harvard University is due not first 
to its age, traditions, or able administration, but to its noble line of 
teachers. 

Harvard College is that part of Harvard University which deals 
with languages, literature, philosophy, history, political science, 
economics, fine arts, architecture, music, mathematics, and pure 
science. The College was the first part of the University to be 
created, and still is the very heart of the University; it is the Alma 
Mater which receives the sons of old Harvard from their homes 
and leads them into the noble spirit and high traditions of the College. 
Upon its teaching depends the thorough work of the Graduate and 
Professional Schools. That the teachers in Harvard College should 
be the best in tHe land; that the older teachers should be free from the 
cares of a straightened income and anxiety for their families when 
strength fails; that the younger teachers should see before them rea- 
sonable promotion in work and salary; that they should be able to 
give themselves completely to their work; and that the best men 
should not be drawn away to other Colleges (as a few have been, and 
unless there is an Endowment, others will be) by the offer of larger 
salaries, is essential to the primacy of Harvard and the culture of the 
sons of Harvard. 

»P. 87. 



IN SERVICE TO HARVARD 175 

The Endowment fund was for two million five hundred 
thousand dollars.^ The amount was raised, Bishop Lawrence 
saying of Mr. Bacon's part in it: 

Ever since he undertook the raising of a million dollars in New 
York for Harvard I have had an increasing admiration for his un- 
selfishness, pubUc spirit, and devotion.^ 

President Lowell once said "One of the striking things" about 
Mr. Bacon was that "he never spared himself." To illustrate 
this, he mentions that Mr. Bacon sat up all night and engaged 
a special train so as not to miss the reception planned for 
South American delegates who were visiting Harvard in 191 6. 
This is true, but it is not all the truth. Mr. Bacon and a close 
friend had spent the evening together, and separated, one to 
take the midnight train from New York to Boston, the other 
the midnight train to Washington. Perhaps the guest had 
stayed longer than he should, and although he caught his train, 
the host missed his. Mr. Bacon had promised to be at Harvard 
to greet his South American friends. When he reached the 
railroad station, he felt for his cheque book which he had for- 
gotten in his hurry. He thereupon drove to his house, got a 
cheque, returned to the station, engaged a locomotive, sat up 
with the driver, and kept his engagement. 

"He was, indeed," as President Lowell says, "an extraor- 



^Among Mr. Bacon's papers was found the following letter from a distinguished law- 
yer, lover of learning and the fine arts, typical of the man and men of means in these 
United States. 

June 5, 1905 
40 Wall Street, New York- 
My Dear Sir: 

I see that an effort is being made to raise a considerable sum for Harvard. I am 
not a Harvard graduate, but a sort of adopted son through the Law School. 

Nevertheless — and although my own College Mother — Princeton — is always dead 
poor — and we have a hard time to keep the old lady out of the Poor House — still my 
feeling and debt to Harvard is such that I am unwilling to have such a movement 
take place without a modest participation on my part — and so I enclose you a 
cheque for Five Thousand Dollars- 

Faithfully yours, 

John L. Cadwalader. 
Robert Bacon, Esq. 

^Letter of Bishop Lawrence to Mrs. Bacon, undated, written shortly after Mr. 
Bacon's death. 



176 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

dinary combination of well-nigh romantic sentiment with 
business training and good judgment."^ 

The address which Mr. Bacon had prepared for the occasion 
and actually delivered was a plea for pan-Americanism and for 
helpful cooperation. It was in keeping with those which he had 
delivered as Ambassador in Paris, in South America, and earlier 
still in Washington, As on these occasions, it was in Spanish. 

"Members of the Scientific Congress, Brothers of America," 
he began; with "Brothers of the Continent" he ended, and in 
between he said: 

I cannot find words to express the pleasure it gives me to wel- 
come you here in this hall of Harvard University. I shall never forget 
your kindness to me and the cordiality of your reception when I 
visited South America as the representative of the Carnegie Endow- 
ment, coming to you with a special message from your devoted friend, 
Mr. Elihu Root. With the courtesy that is proverbial of your polite 
race, you received me in the halls of your great institutions of learning, 
some of them older even than Harvard, which is the oldest institution 
of learning in North America, and with the hospitality for which you 
are noted you welcomed me at your homes and made me feel that I 
was not a stranger but a friend. 

We of this country have much to learn from you, particularly in 
politeness and courtesy, but I wish to assure you that although we 
may not always know how to express it, there is a real and warm 
welcome for you in our hearts. 

It is extremely gratifying to see in your presence here the example 
of that exchange of visits of representative men, which formed one 
of the principal subjects dealt with in the instructions which Mr. 
Root gave me when I visited your country, an exchange of the in- 
tellectual opinion which was to embrace also the exchange of pro- 
fessors and students. . . . 

The regular and periodic exchange of professors and students, 
which we hope will be inaugurated, will make general the knowledge of 
institutions and of the contributions of each nation to the common 
good; the visits of representative men will tend to create and promote 
social intercourse and the knowledge of each other, but the relations 
of nations, considered as nations, depend upon an agreement, under- 
standing, and dissemination of just principles of law and their applica- 
tion to disputes that are bound to arise among members of the same 
familv. 



^President Lowell to James Brown Scott, April, i, 1921. 



IN SERVICE TO HARVARD 177 

It needs no argument that a law to affect all must be made by all, 
that is to say, that it must be the result of cooperation. The law of 
nations is not the law of any one nation; it is not made by any one 
nation. It is not imposed by any one nation; it cannot be changed 
by any one nation. Each nation is equal in and under the law, with 
equal rights and subject to the same duties, for rights and duties are 
correlative terms. 

Just as municipal or national law rests upon the sanction of public 
opinion, so international law rests upon international opinion. . . . 

Never before, I believe, were our countries so close together. 
Never was the necessity more apparent for us to recognize that we are 
bound together by ties of history and nature. It behooves us to 
maintain and strengthen this solidarity which, by reason of its two- 
fold origin, unites inseparably the nations of the new continent in the 
past, in the present, and in the future. 

Brothers of the Continent, from the bottom of my heart I welcome 
you to Harvard. 

Mr. Bacon's service as Fellow was broken by a trip to South 
America, which took part of his vacation in 1913 and three 
months of the fall from the University. He cabled from 
Paris, on September 15, 1913, to President Lowell, saying: 

I find it necessary in order to carry out Root's plans and wishes for 
my South American trip to leave next Sunday, via Lisbon direct for 
Rio. Otherwise must give up going altogether which most unwilling 
to do unless you feel it all important my being Cambridge October 
instead of early December. Please cable frankly your opinion and 
prospects of scientific school. 

To which President Lowell cabled laconically as well as frankly: 
Go by all means. Nothing more about scientific school. 

His service as Fellow was also interrupted by frequent visits 
to France before our entry into the war. He said in a cable 
to President Lowell, from Paris, on December 25, 1914: 

Merry Xmas to you all, asking your forbearance, believing as I do 
this war for ideals and principles as much ours as England's or 
France's, denying as I do the right of President to impose upon me 
false neutrality or doubtful silence, something impelling me remain 



lyS ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

here although so little I can do except sympathize with these bleeding 
suffering friends, wishing you all A Happy New Year. 

Our entry into the war finally led him to cable President 
Lowell from France: 

With resignation please accept my respectful and affectionate 
greetings to President and Fellows, heartfelt thanks for all their kindly 
consideration. It is wrench to sever my official connection with 
Harvard and give up the honour of being their associate. 



PART VII 

FOR BETTER RELATIONS WITH OUR LATIN- 
AMERICAN NEIGHBOURS 

// is in human nature that injuries as well as benefits received in 
times of weakness and distress ^ national as well as personal^ make 
deep and lasting impressions; and those ministers are wise who 
look intojuturiiy arid quench the first sparks of misunderstanding 
between two nations which^ neglected^ may in time grow into a 
flame^ all the consequences whereof no human prudence can foresee^ 
which may produce much mischief to both, and cannot possibly 
produce any good to either. 

Letter of Benjamin Franklin, dated December 22, 1779, to R. 
Bernstorf, Minister of Foreign Affairs in Denmark. 



CHAPTER XIII 

The Visit to South America 

Throughout life, Mr. Bacon was interested in Spain and 
things Spanish. He studied the language in and out of college. 
He read it fluently and pronounced it correctly. He had a gift 
for spoken language, being musical by nature, with a sensitive 
and finely tuned ear accustomed to sounds, and a trained 
voice. He kept up his Spanish, and had occasion from time to 
time to practise it. Especially was this true during his serv- 
ice in the Department of State.^ He did not obtrude his 
knowledge of Spanish upon the representatives of Latin-Ameri- 
can countries. He suggested a word when English or French 
failed them, and allowed them to drop into Spanish if they so 
desired. The result can be divined. With the representatives 
of Central America, Mr. Bacon was very much like a big 
brother and Father-confessor combined. When he ceased to 
be Secretary of State, he gave a farewell dinner to the Latin- 
American representatives at his home in Washington, on 
Sixteenth Street, at which some outsiders closely associated 
with Latin America were present — Mr. Elihu Root, by them 

'Under a hurried line, written after Mr. Bacon's death, Ambassador Morgan thus 
speaks of him, 

Rio de Janeiro 
Embassy of the United States 
My dear Mrs. Bacon, 

I was startled and shocked by the press telegram which appeared the other day 
and announced your great loss in which all your friends share. How can we spare 
such a man when he is so greatly needed? Mr. Bacon and Mr. Roosevelt must be 
grouped together, each contributing in his own sphere and according to his special 
gifts to the common good. His magnificent services during the war both before and 
after we entered it topped his public career. I cannot but feel that he like so many 
civilians, were victims of that stupendous conflagration. 

Mr. Bacon was appreciated in South America where his services at the State 
Department as well as during his South American tour made him well known. The 
note from the Paraguayan Minister in Rio which I enclose is a proof, if such was 
needed. Da Gama has asked me to express his condolences to you. We never had 
so considerate an Under Secretary and all of us in the service are his friends . . . 

Edwin Morgan. 

i8i 



1 82 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

the most admired of American statesmen, Mr. William Elroy 
Curtis, first Secretary of the Pan-American Bureau, Mr. John 
Barrett, then Director General of the Pan-American Union as 
it is now called, and a few others. Mr. Bacon pleased them 
mightily by rising at the close of the dinner and taking a gra- 
cious and affectionate leave of them in an admirably turned 
speech in Spanish. 

Mr. Bacon was thus ideally qualified for a mission of good 
will to the Latin-American countries, and he allowed himself to 
be persuaded to undertake a purely private mission in the 
interest of peace and better understanding, at the instance and 
under the auspices of the Carnegie Endowment for Inter- 
national Peace. 

This Institution was created in 1910 by Mr. Andrew Carnegie 
to advance the cause of international peace. Mr. Bacon's 
friend, Mr. Root, was and fortunately still is President of this 
Endowment. Mr. Root was anxious to have an American of 
distinction pay a visit to Latin America, to explain to his friends 
the aims and purposes of the new organization and to obtain 
their cooperation with the Endowment, in its endeavours in be- 
half of friendly relations and international peace. 

In his letter of instructions to Mr. Bacon of July 20, 1913, Mr. 
Root stated the purpose and nature of the visit in a single 
sentence: 

The object of this mission, which you have already gratified us by 
promising to undertake, is to secure the interest and sympathy of the 
leaders of opinion in South America in the various enterprises for the 
advancement of international peace which the Endowment is seeking 
to promote, and by means of personal intercourse and explanation 
to bring about practical cooperation in that work in South America.^ 

These several purposes of the Endowment fall naturally into 
three groups, and they have been apportioned to Divisions of 
Intercourse and Education, of Economics and History, and of 
International Law. 

Mr. Root, in taking up the reasons which led the Trustees 
to urge Mr. Bacon to go, wrote: 

^For Better Relations with Our Latin American Neighbours: A Journey to South 
America. By Robert Bacon (Washington, 191 5), p. i. 



THE VISIT TO SOUTH AMERICA 183 

The methods and details of activity on the part of each of the 
divisions you will find indicated in a series of monographs, which will 
be handed to you herewith. From these you will perceive two 
things: first, that it is the purpose of the trustees, not that the trust 
organization shall become a missionary seeking to preach the gospel 
of peace or directly to express its own ideas to the world, but rather to 
promote and advance in each country and in all countries the organi- 
zation and activity of national forces in favour of peace. It is not 
so much to add a new peace organization to those already existing in 
the world as it is to be a means of giving renewed vigour to all the 
activities which really tend in a practical way toward preventing war 
and making peace more secure. Second, that in aid of the work 
of each of these three divisions an extensive and effective organiza- 
tion has been perfected in Europe as well as in America, including a 
great number of the most eminent and highly respected statesmen, 
publicists, and leaders of modern thought.^ 

Mr. Root suggests, by way of example, a number of ways in 
which cooperation might be possible: 

(a) The formation of national societies of international law to be 
affiliated with the American Institute of International Law; (b) the 
presentation to the different governments of the opportunity to 
participate in the proposed Academy of International Law at The 
Hague by providing for the sending on the part of each government of 
a representative student to that academy, if organized. You will 
notice that the organization of such an academy to bring together 
students from the whole world under the leaders of thought in interna- 
tional law each summer depends very largely upon the question 
whether the governments of the world feel the need of such an institu- 
tion sufficiently to give it their formal support by sending a represent- 
ative student, (c) The appointment of national committees for 
the consideration of contributions to the programme of the next Hague 
Conference and making arrangements for the intercommunication 
of such committees among all the American countries, (d) The 
establishment of national societies for international conciliation to be 
affiliated with the parent Association for International Conciliation 
at Paris, (e) To arrange for systematic furnishing of data for the 
work of the Division of Economics and History in accordance with 
the programme laid down at Berne by the congress of economists in 
the summer of 191 1.^ 

^For Better Relations with Our Latin American Neighbours, p. 2. 
nbid., p. 3. 



i84 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Mr. Root's letter of instructions was written for a special 
purpose; but like all of his letters, it is illuminated by the 
genius of the man and abounds in wisdom born of a large 
experience and contact with diverse phases of life. The 
closing lines of the instructions to Mr. Bacon should be read and 
pondered by persons interested in good causes where the work 
to do is so manifold: 

The trustees of the Endowment are fully aware that progress in the 
work which they have undertaken must necessarily be slow and that 
its most substantial results must be far in the future. We are dealing 
with aptitudes and impulses firmly established in human nature 
through the development of thousands of years, and the utmost that 
any one generation can hope to do is to promote the gradual change 
of standards of conduct. All estimates of such a work and its results 
must be in terms not of individual human life, but in terms of the long 
life of nations. Inconspicuous as are the immediate results, however, 
there can be no nobler object of human effort than to exercise an in- 
fluence upon the tendencies of the race, so that it shall move, however 
slowly, in the direction of civilization and humanity and away from 
senseless brutality. '^ 

"It is to participate with us," Mr. Root said in conclusion, 
"in this noble though inconspicuous work that we ask you to 
invite our friends in South America with the most unreserved 
and sincere assurances of our high consideration and warm 
regard." 

The trip was a hurried one, but it was carefully planned. The 
immediate object was achieved, in that the men of light and 
leading in the countries visited were found ready to cooperate 
with their friends of the English-speaking Republic in the 
straight, narrow, and very long path that leads to International 
Peace. That way was bottomed upon "better relations" 
between and among the American Republics and all other 
countries. He put the faith that was in him in the title of 
his Report to his fellow Trustees^ For Better Relations with Our 
Latin America?! Neighbours: A 'Journey to South America^ 

^For Better Relations with Our Latin American Neighbours, pp. 3-4. 

2Mr. Bacon was elected a member of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endow- 
ment for International Peace at its first meeting upon his return. He would have been 
an original member, but at the time of its organization in 1910 he was absent from the 
United States as .'\mbassador to France. 



THE VISIT TO SOUTH AMERICA 185 

Mr. Bacon's report abounds in keen observation and wise 
reflection. It sketches in a few passages the poHcy which he 
believed the United States should pursue toward Latin America. 
It is some thirty or forty pages in length, and was his longest 
venture in the field of letters. It is carefully planned, written 
with great simplicity of language and dignity of thought, 
sympathetic, and full of interest. 

Immediately prior to the trip to South America, Mr. Bacon, 
his wife and daughter, had visited the Philippines, where his 
son, Elliot C. Bacon, later a Captain of Artillery in the Ameri- 
can Expeditionary Forces in France, was acting as Secretary to 
Governor General Cameron Forbes of the Philippines. He 
did not return to the United States, but proceeded to Japan, 
China, and thence by the Trans-Siberian Railway to Paris. 
He spent a fortnight in preparation for the journey to South 
America, sailing for Brazil from Lisbon on September 23rd. 
In less than three busy months he visited Brazil, Argentina, 
Uruguay, Chile, Peru, and Panama, returning to New York 
by way of New Orleans, covering in all 50,000 miles. 

The visit to the South American Republics was the occasion 
of intense, unremitting activity on the part of those associated 
with him. There was an overwhelming amount of detail to be 
mastered in the matter of preparation and but little time could 
be allotted to the widely separated capitals: four days in Rio 
de Janeiro, the same length of stay in Buenos Aires, two days 
in Montevideo, four or five days in Santiago, a little less than 
a week in Lima. Schedules for trains and steamers had to be 
kept. There was not a moment for idleness, repose, or sight- 
seeing. In each capital two or three addresses were to be 
made; official receptions attended; personal visits to and con- 
ferences with leaders of opinion; social engagements planned in 
advance by the hospitable people to whom Mr. Bacon was 
going. 

In every capital it was necessary to confer with the leading 
authorities on international law, to form a committee which 
should be in turn the basis of a National Society of Inter- 
national Law. Selections for this committee required the most 
careful diplomatic consideration. 

Much of the advance preparation was done on the long sea 
voyage from Lisbon; on the steamer from Rio to Buenos Aires; 



1 86 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

on the special car of the President of the Argentine Republic 
in which the party journeyed across the Pampas to the Andes; 
on the steamship from Valparaiso to Callao; in hotels. Every 
minute was fully occupied with work. Mr. Bacon allowed him- 
self no personal relaxation until after the last of the South 
American countries had been visited. Much of his time was 
taken up with visits and social affairs, which, however, he 
turned to his advantage, and he listened when he would have 
preferred to talk of his mission. He felt constrained to do so, 
because, as he said to one of his party, after a lengthy confer- 
ence with a distinguished internationalist in Buenos Aires, 
"The best way to make a man listen to you is to show a dis- 
position to listen to him." 

Mr. Bacon had a deep sense of the importance and re- 
sponsibility of his mission. He was careful to have it clearly 
understood that the visit was unofficial and that he came in a 
private capacity, as the representative of the Carnegie Endow- 
ment. The South Americans knew him as their friend, and as 
far as they were concerned they made the mission official, and 
they gave to him the full measure of official welcome which 
they would have accorded a visiting member of a government 
whom they were anxious to receive. 

Mr. Bacon spent a great deal of time and thought in the 
pi^paration of his addresses. He was insistent upon expressing 
fully the purpose of his mission in language which could not 
be misunderstood. He was careful in the extreme that no 
ill-considered phrase should offend the sensibilities of these 
friendly, confiding, sensitive, and, as one of them has said, "not 
very forgetting people."^ 

Mr. Bacon endorsed joyfully the address which Mr. Root 



^The South American had the best authority for his warning, for had not our own 
Benjamin Franklin, the philosopher of the worldly wise, already written: 

"It is in human nature that injuries as well as benefits received in times of weakness 
and distress, national as well as personal, make deep and lasting impressions; and 
those ministers are wise who look into futurity and quench the first sparks of mis- 
understanding between two nations which, neglected, may in time grow into a 
flame, all the consequences whereof no human prudence can foresee, which may pro- 
duce much mischief to both, and cannot possibly produce any good to either. [Letter 
of Benjamin Franklin, dated December 22, 1779, to R. Bernstorf, Minister of Foreign 
Affairs in Denmark, Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence oj the American Revolution, 
vol. iii, p. 435.] 



THE VISIT TO SOUTH AMERICA 187 

had delivered at Rio and the address on laying the corner- 
stone of the Pan-American Building at Washington. 

In the first address Mr. Root, speaking in behalf of the United 
States and surrounded by the twenty-one Americas, solemnly 
said: 

We wish for no victories but those of peace; for no territory except 
our own; for no sovereignty except sovereignty over ourselves. We 
deem the independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest 
member of the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those 
of the greatest empire; and we deem the observance of that respect 
the chief guaranty of the weak against the oppression of the strong. 
We neither claim nor desire any rights or privileges or powers that we 
do not freely concede to every American republic. We wish to in- 
crease our prosperity, to expand our trade, to grow in wealth, in wis- 
dom, and in spirit, but our conception of the true way to accomplish 
this is not to pull down others and profit by their ruin, but to help all 
friends to a common prosperity and a common growth, that we may 
become greater and stronger together. 

In the second, Mr. Root said at Washington on May li, 
1908, again speaking as Secretary of State in behalf of the 
United States: 

It is too much to expect that there will not be controversies between 
American nations to whose desire for harmony we now bear witness; 
but to every controversy will apply the truth that there are no inter- 
national controversies so serious that they cannot be settled peaceably 
if both parties really desire peaceable settlement, while there are few 
causes of dispute so trifling that they cannot be made the occasion of 
war if either party really desires war. The matters in dispute between 
nations are nothing; the spirit which deals with them is everything. 

Mr. Bacon to the end of his life believed that the peace of the 
world could only be bottomed on the Root Doctrine and the 
Root spirit, without which nations should not be expected to 
submit their differences to the cold and passionless decision of a 
court of justice. 

Mr. Bacon felt that the views of his chief should be brought 
within the compass of a single phrase, if they were to attract 
attention, impress the thought, and influence the practice of 
nations. He often said that the sentence from the corner- 
stone address should have been cut in letters of gold in the 



1 88 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

fagade of the Pan-American Building. His other great friend, 
Mr. Roosevelt, was of the same opinion. The trip to South 
America offered the opportunity of proclaiming the doctrine 
and driving it home if he could only put it in a word or two. 
His Secretary, Mr. Hereford, tells how this was done. 

"Mr. Bacon spent much time," he says, "on the steamer 
from Lisbon to Rio in the effort to define accurately the policy 
enunciated by Mr. Root, or as Mr. Bacon expressed it, 'The 
Root Doctrine.' At first this definition took the form of about 
three typewritten pages. Even then I remember it seemed to 
me to be remarkably condensed. But Mr. Bacon was not 
satisfied. He tried again and it took the form of a single page. 
Patiently he laboured to cut out all of the detailed elaboration 
and to reduce it to the actual basic essentials — the lowest 
common denominator. At last he showed me with a smile 
this truly remarkable phrase of eight words, 'a doctrine of 
kindly consideration and honourable obligation.' 

"I may exaggerate," Mr. Hereford concludes, "but I cannot 
recall, in any reading that I have done, coming across a phrase 
that said so much in so few words." 

This is the language of kindly consideration; it is not the 
language of exaggeration, for Mr. Bacon's fine phrase really 
sums up what is fundamentally necessary in the foreign policy 
of any nation. 

An outstanding feature of Mr. Bacon's trip was that he 
addressed his message to the people with whom he spoke in 
their own language or in French, with which most of them were 
familiar. Very few Americans have ventured to make ad- 
dresses in South America in any language but English, and Mr. 
Bacon's course in using a tongue which all his auditors under- 
stood appealed to them strongly and pleased them greatly. 
It was to a large extent responsible for the success of his mission. 
The ease and grace with which he read his addresses were 
remarkable. French he spoke admirably and was fresh from 
Paris, where his fluency in French had been an inestimable 
asset. Spanish he understood, and spoke when the occasion 
seemed to require it. 

With Portuguese he had hitherto had almost nothing to do. 
Yet he prepared himself so that his enunciation was distinct 
and excellent. Mr. Bacon had, however, made up his mind to 



THE VISIT TO SOUTH AMERICA 189 

speak to his Brazilian friends in their mother-tongue. He had 
a few days in Lisbon before the steamer would leave port on its 
western voyage. He haunted the bookshops, he laid in a store 
of Portuguese newspapers, he procured a Portuguese grammar, 
a dictionary of the language of Camoens, and he purchased the 
works of that distinguished gentleman to read on the steamer. 
He studied the grammar, he thumbed the dictionary, he de- 
voured the newspapers, he clung to Camoens. Within two 
weeks the miracle was done! Upon his arrival, a reception 
was given to the party by the American Ambassador at Rio de 
Janeiro to a small but very select gathering. Appearing for 
the first time in South America, Mr. Bacon read an address of 
which the body was in French but the beginning in Portuguese, 
a language with which he was supposed to be unfamiliar and 
which is difficult of pronunciation. "I am sure, Gentlemen," 
Mr. Bacon began, and continued in Portuguese: 

that you will pardon me if, instead of speaking in my own language in 
acknowledgment of your kind expressions of welcome, which have 
moved me profoundly, I say a few words of thanks in your beautiful 
tongue, with the assurance that though these words may be poorly 
expressed, they come from my heart. 

I know it must appear presumptuous for me to address you in 
Portuguese, but I must ask your kind indulgence for two reasons. 
First of all, I must refer to the very high esteem I have always cher- 
ished for the noble Portuguese traditions, which but recently have 
been refreshed in my mind by my stay in Lisbon, whence I have just 
arrived. There, at the foot of the statue of the great Camoes, I re- 
cr.ll-d the memory of that distinguished Brazilian, whose eloquent 
words and writings first developed my sense of appreciation for the 
beauties of the "Lusiads" and the charm of the "Rimas." I refer 
to my illustrious and gentle friend, Joaquim Nabuco, sage, poet, 
and statesman, whom I learned to know and love during an intimacy 
of four years in Washington and whom I was proud to call a friend. 

Another reason that I offer as the inspiration for my addressing you 
in your beautiful language is that on the eve of my departure from the 
United States, at the banquet where I was able to greet my esteemed 
friend, your Ambassador, Mr. Doraicio da Gama, I had the great 
pleasure to find myself seated at the side of your illustrious Minister 
of Foreign Affairs, His Excellency, Mr. Lauro Muller, who, with that 
gentleness and charm of manner so natural to your race and country, 
spoke to us in very good English My compatriots will never forget 



I90 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

the pleasure that the presence of Doctor Muller produced, nor the dis- 
tinguished honour conferred upon us by your country when it ap- 
pointed him to return the visit of our esteemed friend, Elihu Root, 
For us of the University of Harvard, it was especially gratifying to 
have him accept our diploma and thus become a member of our Har- 
vard family. 

I have the honour of having been sent to Brazil by the Carnegie 
Endowment for International Peace, of which Mr. Root is the heart 
and soul. The message that I bring from him is a message of good 
will, which, as expressed by that eminent author and jurist. Dr. Ruy 
Barbosa, truly meets with the "sanction of American opinion," but it 
is particularly a message of regard and esteem from Elihu Root for his 
good friends here. This mission affords me greater pride and pleasure 
than any other entrusted to me during my entire Hfe. 

And how can I begin to express my feelings at the first sight of this 
wonderful city, the magic city of Rio de Janeiro? For, in spite of 
all that has been said or written about its beauty and its bewitching 
grandeur, it surpasses my most extravagant dreams. It is incompar- 
able and I envy you the continual pleasure and inspiration, the force 
and courage that you must derive from it. 

Again, Gentlemen, I assure you of my most profound gratitude for 
the cordial reception and the distinguished honour that you have ac- 
corded me.^ 

The eyes of his hearers opened wide in astonishment and de- 
light, and he was roundly applauded. The effect was in- 
stantaneous and lasting. Two days later, Mr. Ruy Barbosa, 
introducing Mr. Bacon at a reception at the National Library 
of Rio de Janeiro, said: 

The very first time we heard him, the day before yesterday, at the 
American Embassy, through the delightful hospitality of Mr. Mor- 
gan, the distinguished diplomat whose charm is irresistible, he sur- 
prised us with an address, the introduction to which was delivered in 
our own language fluently and correctly, with but slight trace of a 
foreign accent, as if he had long been accustomed to express himself in 
our tongue. With exquisite grace and without effort, inspired only 
by natural earnestness, he revealed to us those miracles of which 
courtesy and benevolence are capable in the mind of a son of that race 
of the United States, that in its type combines the virtues, aptitudes, 
and talents of all others.^ 



^For Better Relations with Our Latin American Neighbours, pp. 63-64. 
■Ibid., p. 70. 



THE VISIT TO SOUTH AMERICA 191 

In Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Santiago de Chile, and Lima, 
Mr. Bacon repeated the triumph of Rio de Janeiro and for the 
same reasons: he addressed each audience in its "beautiful 
tongue," and the words which he spoke came from the heart. 
In all these cities and the countries of which they are the capi- 
tals, the addresses were published in full in the principal news- 
papers, where again, for the same reasons, they attracted the 
widest public attention, 

Mr. Bacon spared no pains to make his speeches worthy 
of the occasion, and he laboured at them often until the 
very moment of their delivery, going over them with a 
blue pencil, eliminating here, adding there, and reading them 
aloud to perfect his pronunciation of difficult or important 
passages. For him each occasion of public speaking was an 
ordeal of highly nervous tension, and this tension was in- 
creased by the necessity of delivering his remarks ip. a foreign 
language. The tension, however, was never apparent to his 
audiences. The calmness of the speaker and his quiet good 
humour gave no hint of the nervous energy which had been 
expended. 

One incident of the trip will serve to illustrate how nerve- 
racking the occasions were, and how complete was Mr. Bacon's 
control of his temper. It happened in Buenos Aires at the 
residence of John W. Garrett, the American Minister, where 
Mr. and Mrs. Bacon and Miss Bacon were guests. The auto- 
mobile was at the door to take Mr. Bacon to the University 
where his first and most important address was to be delivered. 
There were many changes to be made, and he sat with his 
secretary, going over each word in a feverish desire to reach the 
end in time. There were constant interruptions: a servant 
would come to announce the automobile; another person 
would enter the room on another errand, and so it went on 
until it seemed impossible that human nerves could stand it. 
Mr. Bacon's calmness vanished. "I'll knock down the next 
person who opens that door," he exclaimed. The words were 
on his lips when the door opened and Mrs. Bacon entered. 
Mr. Bacon looked up and — smiled. "What is it, Mother?" 
he asked, so gently that Mrs. Bacon never suspected the 
storm which had swept the room but a moment before. He 
seemed to have forgotten the speech, the corrections to be 



92 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 



IQ2 



made, the waiting audience, and to have time and thought 
only for the woman who stood before him. 

In an interview pubhshed in the Evening Post\ Mr. Bacon 
touched the high spots of his trip and gave to the pubHc some of 
the views which he later elaborated for the fuller report. 
Almost the opening sentences of the interview are, "It is diffi- 
cult to exaggerate the manifestations of friendliness for the 
United States which were exhibited in every country. In spite 
of misrepresentations and misunderstandings, caused nearly 
always by our ignorance of the real conditions in South America, 
we have no truer friends anywhere in the world than in these 
sister republics of the same continent. They welcome every 
opportunity to testify their regard for us." 

How to maintain this friendliness, how to increase it by en- 
lightening the ignorance which threatens it, to correct the mis- 
representations and to remove the misunderstandings; those 
were the larger purposes which Mr. Bacon had in mind, and the 
specific objects of his mission were as a means to these ends. 
In its larger aspects, the Report turns around Mr. Root as the 
centre and the source of light and inspiration, not only to Mr. 
Bacon, but to a whole continent. This he states in no un- 
certain terms in the interview; 

The visit to South America made by Mr. Root in 1906, when he 
was Secretary of State, has had an enduring effect in bringing about a 
better understanding between the Latin republics and the United 
States. That visit is vividly remembered and constantly referred 
to in the speeches and writings of the brilliant representatives of pub- 
lic opinion throughout South America. To it, perhaps, more than 
to any other single circumstances Is to be attributed the present atti- 
tude toward us; for Mr. Root, as will be remembered, by his doctrine 
of sympathy and understanding, of kindly consideration and honor- 
able obligation, was able to allay or eradicate the suspicion and dis- 
trust of our motives that had been slowly engendered.^ 

Everywhere Mr. Bacon noted progress. "Some of these 
republics," he said, "are advancing so rapidly that each suc- 
ceeding year will mark an important change. The people have 

^The New York Evening Post, December 13, 1913. 

'For Better Relations with Our Latin American Neighbours, p. 50 



THE VISIT TO SOUTH AMERICA 193 

been beset by obstacles greater than those that confronted 
our forefathers, and but httle understood by us here, but, in 
spite of them, they have forged ahead until the civilization of 
their larger centres compares favourably with the older civiliza- 
tion of Europe." And they are apparently unspoiled by 
prosperity. "The rapid material development of their won- 
derful countries," Mr. Bacon said, "has in no way blunted 
their lofty idealism, and nowhere can there be found men more 
willing or more able to work together for a common, humani- 
tarian purpose. All that is suggestive of social progress makes 
an immediate appeal to their sympathies."^ 

Mr. Bacon closed the interview in a way as pleasing to the 
people whom he had the good fortune to visit as it was typical 
of his good judgment, tact, and courtesy. "There is," he said, 
"great and substantial benefit to be derived from an acquaint- 
ance with our South American neighbours, of whom too many 
of us are, unfortunately, profoundly ignorant. The repre- 
sentative men and women of these countries have all the charm 
and grace and intellectual culture for which the Latin races are 
famous. Their warm-hearted hospitality is proverbial. Per- 
sonally, I shall never forget, nor can I adequately express my 
appreciation of, the kindness and courtesy of their welcome."" 

In a few paragraphs of what he calls his preliminary report, 
Mr. Bacon states the general results of his mission, leaving the 
details of each of the countries visited for the larger and final 
account. That even the most casual reader may have these re- 
sults in summary form, and thus be able to appreciate the 
success of Mr. Bacon's visit, with the aims and purposes of 
which they are already familiar, a few paragraphs are given 
with an omission of a phrase or two: 

On every side the invitation to our friends in South America to cor- 
dial and sympathetic union with the Trustees in the various enter- 
prises which the Endowment is seeking to promote, met with en- 
thusiastic response. 

The proposed exchange of visits of representative men was most 
heartily approved and might be put into execution without delay .... 

It was my good fortune to be in Lima while the Pan-American 

^For Better Relations with Our Latin American Neighbours, p. 52. 
''Ibid., pp. 52-53. 



194 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

Medical Congress was in session, and at the opening meeting of that 
body of scientists, to hear one of the speakers, Doctor Cabred, refer 
with appreciation to the work of the Carnegie Endowment for Inter- 
national Peace. I was deeply impressed by the fact that these men, 
gathered together from the American republics for a common, humani- 
tarian purpose, well represented the "international mind," and I took 
the liberty of suggesting to the President of the Congress, Doctor 
Odriozola, the possibility of selecting from the Congress representa- 
tives who might be willing to visit the United States in connection 
with the exchange of visits proposed by the Endowment. 

The way has been prepared for the formation of national societies 
for conciliation to be affiliated with the Association for International 
Conciliation in Paris and New York. ... 

Societies of International Law to be affiliated with the American 
Institute of International Law have either been actually formed or 
are in process of formation in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Monte- 
video, Santiago, and Lima. 

I had the honour of presenting to the Governments of the countries 
which I visited the opportunity to participate in the proposed Acad- 
emy of International Law at The Hague, and of calling their attention 
to the necessity of appointing national committees for the con- 
sideration of contributions to the programme of the next Hague Con- 
ference and making arrangements for the intercommunication of such 
committees among all the American countries. 

The representatives of the several Governments with whom I 
talked were receptive without exception. The proposed Academy of 
International Law at The Hague made an immediate appeal to their 
sympathy and interest and they also expressed their appreciation of 
the importance of the early appointment of national committees to 
discuss contributions to the programme of the next Hague Peace Con- 
ference. 

In all the principal addresses I took the opportunity to describe the 
work of the Division of Economics and History of the Endowment, 
and to bespeak for it the assistance of our friends in South America in 
arranging for the systematic furnishing of data in accordance with the 
programme laid down at Berne. . . .^ 

Of the final report of his journey, "For Better Relations 
with Our Latin American Neighbours," the first part, given 
over to preliminary observations, will be found most interest- 
ing, as Mr. Bacon not only explains the relations of the United 



^For Better Relations with Our Latin American Neighbours, pp. Ii-i2. 



THE VISIT TO SOUTH AMERICA 195 

States to the other RepubHcs of the American continent, but 
states the pohcy which in his opinion the United States should 
pursue in the future. His fundamental thesis is, that "by 
history even more than by nature the countries of the North 
and South American continents are bound closely together."^ 
How are they to be kept together? In answer to this ques- 
tion, Mr. Bacon naturally turns to the past and refers in first 
instance to Henry Clay, who espoused the cause of the Spanish 
colonies then in arms against the mother country, advocated 
the recognition of their independence, and predicted the pros- 
perous future into which all have not yet entered, but into 
which we hope they will all enter in the fullness of time. He 
passes to Mr. Blaine's proposal for Pan-American Conferences, 
attributing to President Garfield's statesmanship — "the first of 
those Pan-American Conferences which are now held regu- 
larly."' "History," Napoleon is reported as saying, "is 
agreed fiction." It may turn out that the idea was original 
neither with Mr. Blaine nor President Garfield, whose Secretary 
of State he was, and that some less known but farsighted states- 
man suggested it. However that may be, the fact is that Mr. 
Blaine signed the note for the call of such a conference in 1881. 
The conference he called met in 1889 at Washington, when he 
was Secretary of State under President Harrison. 

Of these conferences, four had met before the World War and 
a fifth of the series would have convened in Chile approxi- 
mately in 191 5 if that calamity had not occurred. Probably 
nothing has done more than these conferences, meeting in the 
course of every few years, to make the American States feel 
their oneness, even if they do not always act as a unit. One 
of the reasons Mr. Bacon found admirably stated in general 
terms by Mr. Roque Saenz Pena, a delegate to the First Pan- 
American Conference and President of Argentina during Mr. 
Bacon's visit to that country. In the course of an address to 
the conference, that distinguished, hardheaded, and practical 
statesman said: 

The truth is that our knowledge of each other is limited. The 
Republics of the North of this continent have lived without holding 

^For Better Relations with Our Latin American Neighbours, p. 13. 
^Ibid., p. 14. 



196 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

communication with those of the South, or of the Center. Absorbed, 
as they have been, hke ours in the organic labor of their institutions, 
they have failed to cultivate with us closer and more intimate rela- 
tions.^ 

Of the value of Mr. Root's services, Mr. Bacon has this to 
say, after quoting Dr. Saenz Pena: 

While I am confident that this true explanation of our mistakes is 
accepted by the discerning statesmen of our sister republics, it has 
been only natural that the apparent and often actual neglect of our 
opportunities to cultivate a better understanding of our neighbors, 
our ignorance of their affairs and our seeming national indifference to 
their progress should have tended to engender on their part senti- 
ments of resentment, distrust and suspicion. Mr. Root's historic 
visit to South America in 1906 has been responsible, more than any 
other single factor, for the correction of these impressions of us. Our 
people at large have not even a faint conception of the great service 
Mr. Root has done them by his sympathetic attitude and by his re- 
peated utterances of our national poHcy, but this service is recognized 
in all parts of South America, where he is regarded with the deepest 
affection and respect.- 

Omitting for the present the specific objects of Mr. Bacon's 
mission, with which he follows this passage, the latter portion 
of the preliminary observations takes up and completes his 
views on the larger problems. 

In speaking or in thinking of the Republics of South America we are 
exceedingly apt to fall into the error of regarding them as a whole. 
The ten separate states are as distinct as the separate countries of 
Europe; the peoples constituting them differ in race, habits, and 
ideals; their governments, though retaining the same basic form, are 
really often quite dissimilar. We shall never go very far toward im- 
proving our relations with the Latin-American Republics, either in the 
matter of intellectual intercourse or of commerce, until we have made 
ourselves familiar with the separate nations and by study or actual 
contact learned to make the necessary distinctions between them. A 
true understanding of our neighbours can come only with a knowledge 
of their separate histories, of their heroes, of the epics of valour and 

^Minutes 0/ the International American Conference, Washington, i88g (1890), p. 297. 
''■For Better Relations with Our Latin American Neighbours, pp. 14-15. 



THE VISIT TO SOUTH AMERICA 197 

perseverance of each Republic and of the races from which they have 
sprung, native and European.^ 

Nevertheless, the peoples of South America are alike in 
many respects and have certain admirable qualities in com- 
mon. As Mr. Bacon says: 

Although error springs from regarding the South American nations 
as a whole, certain characteristics are, in greater or less degree, com- 
mon to all of these peoples. They are hospitable, courteous, sensi- 
tive, proud, and intensely patriotic. Whoever goes among them with 
a disregard of these traits is sure to produce a bad impression upon 
them. We of northern climes are traditionally more brusque, and 
brusqueness is foreign and offensive to these descendants of the polite 
races of the Iberian Peninsula. Their sensitiveness causes them to 
resent criticism, although they accept most readily suggestions 
prompted by a sincere friendship but an attitude of superiority, too 
often assumed by unthinking persons of other nations, can beget 
only their suspicion, distrust, and contempt.- 

Mr. Bacon notes that in every country he visited he "found 
sentiments of warmest friendship for the United States," and 
that the occasional opinions to the contrary were "practically 
negligible in comparison with the earnest desire for the friendli- 
est relations between our countries which one hears expressed 
by the real leaders of opinion everywhere." Yet Mr. Bacon 
sounds a note of warning: 

It behooves the people of this country, however, to conduct them- 
selves toward their Latin-American neighbours with such consideration 
and fairness that no cause for suspicion may arise. It has been 
decreed by our geographical position and historical association that 
our destinies shall not be separate. Such has been the view of our 
own statesmen from the time of Monroe and such was the opinion of 
those early great leaders of South American independence. I believe 
that this opinion is held by the South American leaders of to-day, not 
in any sense of political alliance and, certainly, in no degree in a man- 
ner to involve the sovereignty of any state concerned, but as a matter 
of policy necessitated by our proximity to each other, our isolation 



'^For Better Relations with Our Latin American Neighbours, p. 19. 
"Ibid., p. 20. 



198 ROBERT BACON-LIFE AND LETTERS 

from other continents and our common ideals of liberty. We must 
all, I think, admit the force of the argument for our interdependence, 
but each American nation should be scrupulously careful in respecting 
the rights and sentiments of the others.^ 

How should we Americans of the North act toward the 
Americans of the South? To this question Mr. Bacon has a 
ready answer: 

For our conduct we cannot do better than to remember and follow 
the sentiments of John Quincy Adams expressed in a special message 
to the House of Representatives, explaining his action in appointing 
delegates to the Conference held in Panama: 

"The first and paramount principle upon which it was deemed wise 
and just to lay the cornerstone of all our future relations with them 
(our sister American republics) was disinterestedness; the next was 
cordial good will to them; the third was a claim of fair and equal 
reciprocity."^ 

Add to John Quincy Adams' paramount principle Mr. Root's 
doctrine of sympathy and understanding, of kindly considera- 
tion and honourable obligation, and we have, in Mr. Bacon's 
opinion, a perfect policy "for better relations with our Latin- 
American neighbours." 

In the spring of 1914, after the preparation of his report of his 
visit to our southern neighbours, Mr. Bacon was elected a 
member of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment, 
under whose auspices^ he made his journey from which he 
brought back good tidings from the promised land. Indeed, 
he was so impressed with what he saw that he was bold enough 
to say, or was farsighted enough to prophesy, "it must strike 
any one who visits South America that it is the country of the 
future,"'* 



'^For Better Relations with Our Latin American Neighbours, pp. 20-21. 

nbid., p. 21. 

'It is due to Mr. Bacon and his interest in " Better Relations with Our Latin American 
Neighbours" to note that although he made his long trip to South America under the 
auspices of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, he not only refused any 
compensation, but also personally assumed and paid the expenses of himself and party. 

■•New York Evening Post, December 13, 1913, For Better Relations with Our Latin 
American Neighbours, p. 52. 



PART VIII 

PREPAREDNESS 

*' Where there is no visiofiy the people perish.^ 



I 



CHAPTER XIV 

The First Years of the War 

Interested in the promotion of international peace by rules 
of law and their diffusion through educational processes; in- 
terested in the advancement of education at home through the 
activity of his beloved University, Mr. Bacon might well look 
forward to a career of congenial usefulness. 

Outwardly, the world was at peace — but only outwardly. 
The peace was the calm before the tempest, which broke in the 
summer of 1914. At the first rumbling, Mr. Bacon was alarmed 
and alert. He felt that the Powers which wanted war, or were 
willing to run the risk of war rather than renounce their policies 
of expansion at the expense of lesser powers, would take no 
steps to preserve peace. He felt also that the war could not be 
localized; that the United States would be drawn into it, and 
that we should prepare at once, and while there was still time. 

On June 28, 1914, the world was startled by the assassina- 
tion of the heir of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and his 
morganatic wife at the hands of a Bosnian of Serbian race in 
the city of Sarajevo, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian 
province of Bosnia. The Dual Monarchy sought to implicate 
the then little kingdom of Serbia in the crime. This Serbia 
denied. There had been for some years strained relations be- 
tween the two countries, and there was propaganda for a 
Greater Serbia, which Austria-Hungary regarded as a menace, 
inasmuch as there were large numbers of Austro-Hungarian 
subjects of Serbian origin within the bounds of the monarchy. 

Austria-Hungary formulated a series of demands against 
Serbia which were handed to the Serbian Minister of Foreign 
Affairs at Belgrade on July 23rd, demanding their acceptance 
within forty-eight hou-3. Fearing that war might result, the 
large European Powers, with the exception of Germany, urged 
Serbia to return a conciliatory reply. This it did, accepting 
all but one of the ten demands, and as to that, offering arbitra- 



202 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

tion. The attempts of Great Britain, France, Italy, and Russia 
to bring about a peaceful settlement, whether by means of 
arbitration, mediation, or conference, failed. Austria-Hungary 
declared the reply unsatisfactory, and on July 28th issued a 
declaration of war against Serbia. As a matter of precaution 
Russia mobihzed its army; Germany insisted that the mobiliza- 
tion was on the German as well as the Austrian frontier, and 
demanded that it should cease. Upon the failure of Russia to 
comply, Germany issued a declaration of war against that 
mighty Empire on the first of August, 1914. Failing to receive 
assurance from France that it would remain neutral, Germany 
declared war against the French Republic two days later. 
Great Britain demanded of Germany that its armies should not 
drive through Luxembourg and Belgium, in their eagerness 
to invade France where most unprepared, inasmuch as those two 
countries had been neutralized by treaties to which, among 
other countries, Germany and Great Britain were parties. 
The refusal of Germany to give assurance (for it was already 
pushing its armies through both) caused Great Britain to de- 
clare war against Germany on August 4th. 

Such is a very meagre statement of the facts as they appeared 
upon the surface and were known to Mr. Bacon at the time. 
He felt, however, that the Austro-Hungarian and German 
authorities looked upon Serbia as standing in the way of their 
expansion in the south and east through the Balkan Peninsula 
into Asia; that Serbia should be got out of the way if the rail- 
road from Berlin to Bagdad, with its boundless possibilities, 
was to be built by and under the control of Germany, and if 
German influence was to prevail in that part of the world. Be 
that as it may, "the hour has struck" — to use a German expres- 
sion — and war, soon to be known as the World War, had begun. 
Mr. Bacon never doubted that Great Britain would have to 
go in, as otherwise Germany would absorb Belgium and Hol- 
land and establish itself securely in northern France, should 
it win the war, and thus confront Great Britain in the North 
Sea and the English Channel, awaiting the day of reckoning 
with that rival Power. He was fearful that Great Britain might 
stay out for the present, blind to its own interest. When the 
news came the night of Tuesday, the fourth, that Great Britain 
had declared war, he cried, "Thank God, the war can now be 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 203 

won." And he added immediately, "We must prepare, for 
we may also have to go in." 

Subsequent developments have made it clear that Mr. 
Bacon was right. The entry of Great Britain made it possible 
to win the war by giving the Entente a chance against the 
German war machine, perfected in forty years of peace to crush 
its enemies before they could bring their armies into the field 
and mobilize their resources. 

Mr. Bacon was also right in urging preparedness on our part, 
for, he said, a nation which would violate the neutrality of 
one country when it seemed to be to its advantage would 
violate the neutral rights of the United States if that should 
seem to promise victory. 

So clearly have events demonstrated his far-sighted wisdom 
that it is now difficult to appreciate the criticism heaped upon 
him for advocating these principles. His courage and con- 
viction were too strong, however, to be weakened by abuse. 

The outbreak of the World War found Mr. Bacon a free 
lance, in the sense that he was not in business, from which he 
had withdrawn in 1903, and he no longer held public office. 
He was restless at home; he wanted to be in Europe, to see with 
his own eyes how things were going, and to help where he could. 

It was clear as matters stood that the Allies were in need 
of hospitals, hospital supplies, surgeons, nurses, and hospital 
equipment. The war had come so suddenly that it took the 
world by surprise. At least, it so took the Allies and the 
uninitiated. 

Here was a field of work, and in this field Mrs. Bacon toiled 
at home, raising funds through personal appeal and effi^rt, 
and Mr. Bacon gave of his time, of his thought, of his money, 
now in England, now in France, but chiefly to the American 
Ambulance of Paris, the military branch of the American 
Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine. 

By August 26, 1 9 14, he was off to Europe on La France^ and 
while still on the steamer he writes to Mrs. Bacon, his only 
correspondent during these last years, pouring out his heart, 
and uncovering his soul: 

My heart is sinking already, and we haven't left the dock. . . . 
Was it stupid and inconsiderate of me to go! — to be persuaded to 



204 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

change my mind again this morning, after it was all settled? — I can't 
feel that it is pure selfishness, because it has no attractions for me, 
and no pleasure except the getting home again. — The decision was the 
result of so many cross currents and emotions and doubts that it was 
and is hard to analyze or quite understand, but the fact is that I am 
very lonely and unhappy, and have no more confidence in my own 
judgment — I seem to be conscious of a sort of feverish desire to do 
something for somebody, with not enough aggressiveness or ability 
to make it worth while. Au fond I seem to be actuated by a real 
ambition to do something that may indirectly help my children to 
make moral fibre. — Personally, I seem to exist no more for myself. 
This is my constant thought. One of my best friends, Judge Gary, 
tells me that I am not aggressive enough. He is right — perhaps it's 
a lack of courage of a certain kind, or of self-confidence, perhaps it's 
weakness, a lack of the preeminent attributes of the masculine animal. 
— We are all curiously composed of inconsistencies — of unaccountable 
strength and weakness, seldom understood by others, even our nearest 
and dearest — Faint Heart that I am, already dreading the voyage and 
the trip. I have no buoyancy, no enthusiasm, no conviction, but 
although it seems interminable already it will soon be over and I shall 
be home again, glad to settle down once more and for all like a tame 
old cat — out of the fight — out of the current — unfit for leadership. — I 
can add nothing to my children's moderate inheritance, either ma- 
terial or moral. They must fight the fight themselves and my dream 
of being sometime somebody to serve as an inspiration, and to 
awaken a big ambition, is past. I am even inarticulate and cannot 
explain to them the truth. 

There is danger of spoiling the impression of this letter by 
comment, and yet a few words by way of explanation are 
needed. Mr. Bacon was regarded as the aggressive, even too 
aggressive, champion of our duties to the Allies. Fathers and 
mothers were not slow at that time to criticise him as an ad- 
vocate of sacrificing their sons. They did not realize that his 
heart was torn no less than theirs, that he was thinking of his 
own sons, but always from the larger point of view, with in- 
finite tenderness and a constant regard for their spiritual 
streiigtK and welfare. He did not ask others to do what he 
himself was not prepared to do;. his doubts were as great and 
his sorrows were as heavy as their own; but his strength, his 
moral rectitude, were such that he could not compromise. 
We are indeed, as he said, "curiously composed of incon- 




I -r. 



o ^ 



PC t: 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 205 

sistencies — of unaccountable strength and weakness seldom 
understood by others, even our nearest and dearest," and, he 
might have added, even by ourselves. 

The longing to be worthy of imitation, the "dream of being 
sometime somebody to serve as an inspiration, and to awaken 
a big ambition," which kept Mr. Bacon "as clean as a hound's 
tooth," as his friend Colonel Roosevelt would say, the public 
did not know; even his friends could hardly surmise. His 
life is the best answer to his own criticism of himself; it should 
"sometime" be "an inspiration" to his countrymen, and 
"awaken a big ambition" in many an American boy. 

On the other side, but while still aboard the La France^ Mr. 
Bacon wrote to Mrs. Bacon under date of September ist: 

The cliffs of Cornwall are alongside and out of the fog a British 
cruiser has just appeared and passed close aboard. It has given me a 
big lump in my throat after the tremendous tension and impatience 
of the voyage, and now I can hardly wait to hear the real news, for 
that which we have received on board has been very fragmentary and 
unsatisfactory. We have not been allowed to use the "wireless" or I 
should have cabled you many times. Did you think it crazy and 
selfish of me to go as I did? I hope not . . . after the first shock. 
It seems as if I could not bear not to come closer to observe this awful I 
world crisis. — There was such a mixture of considerations and 
motives pulling me hither and yon those last few hours that I can 
hardly now understand them, . . . but somehow I was impelled 
to come and look at this dreadful thing from a different point of view, ' 
and now what shall I find when I get ashore! 

I have been all alone, reading, reading of pan-Germanism and the 
Balkans, the real pawns which started the conflagration — and of 
Paris in the year 1910 by Jules Claretie of the Frangais.^ The last 
few days I have seen something of the Frenchmen, officers, and ser- 
geants and privates, who are hurrying back to fight and be killed. 
It has brought me very close already to all the hideous suffering of it 
all. Four officers from the Embassy at Tokio, who left Yokohama 
only twenty-five days ago, a fine young Frenchman named Pierrefeu 
from the Steel Company in Chicago and his American wife. She was 

'Jules Claretie (1840-1913). Member of the French Academy; Director of the 
Theatre Frangais; historian, essayist and dramatist. Among his many volumes may 
be mentioned, La Vie de Paris (1913), published in 21 volumes in 1914; reprints of 
articles to the weekly press extending through many years. His interests were broad 
and his activities covered a large field, including the libretto to Massenet's opera 
La Navarraise. 



2o6 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

a Tudor of Boston, daughter of Bill Tudor, '71, a cousin of Mrs. Gar- 
land and the others, who has left her four children in America. . . . 

Mr. Bacon landed at Havre, rushed to Paris, and installed 
himself in the Crillon, where he kept an apartment. What he 
did in these first hectic days he tells in a letter dated Sunday 
night, September 6th, from Paris: 

This is the first moment I have had to write you a line, although I 
have been here three days, and three such interesting days. 
* I am going to stay on for a week or so with Herrick, who is perfectly 
fine, and needs all the moral support and as many aides as possible for 
he is not only the one ambassador remaining in Paris but is acting also 
for Germany, Austria, and partially for the British Embassy. The 
French people and the Government are all crazy about him and look 
to him in a large measure to protect property when the Germans come 
in, as they probably will, but as soon as the situation has declared 
itself and he can with self-respect and conscientiously turn it over to 
Sharp he will do so and start for home and I will go with him if I do 
not go before, as I expect surely to get out of Paris and sail before Oct. 
1st as I said I woulci. 

There will be no siege of Paris such as the last. It will all be soon 
over as far as Paris is concerned, and I dread the awful fate to which it 
will be destined. Poor Paris! 
I The people here are really all delighted to see me and touched by 
I my coming, which is reward enough, but I just missed the Govern- 
ment and Hanotaux — whom I especially wanted to see and who has 
been urging me to come to Bordeaux through his Secretary, Monsieur 
9j/ Jaray, who has been most kind and came to meet us at Havre, and 

brought us to Paris, Sharp^ and me, in autos in the most enchanting 
moonlight night. — So I am going to Bordeaux to-morrow morning re- 
turning to-morrow night and Major Logan- is going with me by auto- 
mobile with two soldiers as mechanicians and all the necessary laisser- 



'The Honourable William G. Sharp, formerly a member of Congress from Ohio, had 
been appointed Ambassador to France to succeed Mr. Herrick — also from Ohio. 
Mr. Herrick was so familiar with the conditions and had the situation so completely in 
hand; his presence was so pleasing to France and his services so acceptable to the 
Government which was replacing him for political reasons, that he was asked to remam 
until Mr. Sharp could become familiar with conditions and the duties of his post. 
Mr. Herrick did so until December, 1914. 

-James A. Logan; Jr., figures prominently in Mr. Bacon's correspondence, and later 
in his activities in France. He was a Major in the Quartermaster Corps (1912); 
Lieutenant Colonel (temporary, 1917; permanent, 191 8.) 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 207 

passers to get through the patroiiilles which are pretty thick beyond 
Versailles. 

To-day there has been fighting out by Coulommiers and yesterday, 
and I suppose there will be a big battle on that side to-morrow or 
within a few days unless the Germans have entirely changed their 
plan of campaign. — They are now between the French army of 
Paris and the French army of the East or Northeast. The English 
are doing splendidly. — We have just been talking to a couple of 
wounded English cavalry boys just in from the front. 

The Assistant Secretary of War/ General Allen,^ and the Major all 
dined with me at Maxims', which is one of the best places now to dine, 
closing sharp at 9:30 and always an interesting bunch of soldiers and 
Parisians, Widor, Flamengue, and many such. — Widor is cordiality it- 
self, and constantly speaks of you and Sister, as does everyone else in 
fact, Lepine,^ Klotz,^ who by the way is on the staff of the Military 
Governor of Paris with whom I lunched yesterday with Arthur Meyer 
of the Gaulois and Gros-Claude of the Figaro. — Madame Klotz is 
remaining in Paris. . . . 

Jack Monroe is at the front. All the Murats, father, five sons, and 
the Princess. — It is all very wonderful, impress ionnant and emouvant. 
— We are going to have about ten American officers, a detachment of 
marines in plain clothes and a score of volunteers to work at the 
Chancellerie and at 5 rue Frangois Premier, looking after Americans, 
English and much valuable property, en casl . . . 

Good-night. ... I haven't many hours to sleep as I start de 
ires bonne heure. — I . . . wish you were here, although I suppose 
it all seems very wild and foolish from that distance and from the sen- 
sational newspaper accounts. Good-bye again. . . . Forgive me if 
I am giving you a moment's anxiety. When you receive this I may be 
already starting for home by way of St. Malo and England. I only 
want to stay a while to help the Ambassador, and the many secours 
and assistances in this awful hour of trial for France with all my heart- 
felt sympathy. 



^Henry Breckinridge (1866- ). Later Major and Lieutenant-Colonel of In- 
fantry in the American Expeditionary Forces. 

-Henry T. Allen, later, Major-General, commanding a Division (September, 1917), 
and the 8th Army Corps (November, 191 8), American Expeditionary Forces; Com- 
mander of the American Forces in Germany (1919-1922). 

'Louis Jean Lepine (1846- ). Among the many political positions which he has 

held, two may be mentioned: Governor-General of Algeria (1897); Prefect of Police 
(1893-1897, 1899-1913), Honourary Prefect of Police. Member of the Institute of 
France. 

^Louis L. Klotz (1868- ). Member of the Chamber of Deputies; Minister of 
Finance in various Cabinets. 



2o8 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

This reference to Mr. Herrick is characteristic. Mr. Her- 
rick's refusal to quit his post did him infinite honour, and was 
in Hne with American traditions, for was not our Gouverneur 
Morris the only representative of a foreign country who re- 
mained at his post throughout the Reign of Terror? EHhu 
B. Washburne, our Minister to France during the Franco- 
Prussian War of 1870-71, stayed in Paris through the siege, 
when the French Government took refuge in Bordeaux for the 
first time, and during the Commune, when Versailles was the 
favourite resort of the professional diplomat. Mr. Brand 
Whitlock, our Minister to Belgium, Hkewise remained at his 
post in Brussels notwithstanding the transfer of the Belgian 
Government on October 13, 19 14, to Havre and the exodus of 
his colleagues during the German occupation. It is entirely 
proper for a government to withdraw from a capital menaced 
by the enemy as did the French Government on September 3, 
1 9 14. It is proper for the diplomats to follow the government 
to which they are accredited; but neither invading armies nor 
civil commotions seem to suggest to the American envoy a 
change of venue. 



September 30, 19 14. 

To-day I am longing more than ever to get home to you. . . . 
Nothing keeps me but the possibility that Paris is still in danger, and 
I cannot leave Herrick until all such danger is honestly believed to be 
passed. As a volunteer at the Embassy it is just as necessary for me 
to stay as it is for him to remain in Paris, for should the Brutes come, 
there will be plenty to do for all, and should there be a bombardment, 
I naturally could not run away. ... I am glad I came tor it 
has been appreciated, and one or two little things I have been able to 
do well, but now I want to come home to you, and you may be sure 
that I shall come if only this dreadful incubus can be pushed away 
even a little, so that the Russians may come up to relieve the pressure 
upon Paris. 

The situation to-day, according to the Communique, is good, but I 
know that it is not good, except that every day brings us all nearer the 
end of this time of terror and horror, and unspeakable, unthinkable 
brutality against the whole world. . . . How can there be neu- 
trality? This is no war between a few friendly states with which we 
have no concern. The United States, with Italy, the Scandinavians, 
Spain, Switzerland, and Roumania should cry out to stop this militar- 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 209 

ism, which, if it should succeed, will engulf the whole civilized world. ( 
This is a great world crisis which far transcends all accepted rules of 
International Law. The opinion of the whole world is one unani- ^ 
mously. One does not stop to enquire too nicely as to who started ■ 
the conflagration before putting it out. A mad dog is killed without 
waiting to know what sanction of law there may be for so doing. I 
am delighted that a day of Prayer has been decreed for Peace, but I 
should hke also to hear that Woodrow Wilson and his advisers could 
rise above even the tenets which have come down to us through tradi- 
tion from the time of Grotius, and impose Peace, righteous Peace. _,^ 
We have the 'Duty as well as the Right to do so, but no Neutrality!! in 
every line. Eventually toward what? Brutal medifeval militarism \ 
on the one hand and all the forces of progress and liberalism and truth 
on the other. '' Bellum omnis contra omnes" to paraphrase, to be \ 
neutral is to admit the possibility of right on both sides. * 

It is incroyable. No wishy-washy legal neutrality for me, and this 
instead of being opposed to International Law is of the very essence. — 
Tell this to Scott and to Root for me, and ask them if I am crazy and 
hysterical. — This is the time for the imagination of idealists to rise 
above the trammels of precedent. The world has never seen or 
thought of such a condition, such a danger as now threatens, not 
France, not little Belgium, nor even England's commerce, but the great 
world forces of Truth, which are dimly only to be recognized — toward 
which humanity is slowly but surely tending. And must we sit by 
safe in our comfortable commercialism and permit this awful thing! 
Fancied security — for just as day follows night will come our retribu- 
tion if we allow it to prevail. ... I would like to take him^ out 
to the trenches where the flower of Anglo-Saxon manhood side by 
side with the last hope of France lie in defence of our whole Western 
world, bleeding, bleeding, dying, suffering, wet through day after day, 
dodging the merciless shells, the messengers of this ruthless militar- 
ism. . . . With one word he could take the lead in such a protest 
that the whole world would cry out for joy and follow his courageous 
lead. No^ they must fight it out, I suppose, for the sake of our com- 
mercial neutrality. Ask Root and Scott if I am all wrong. . . . 

The battle which Mr. Bacon reports as in progress was the 
battle of the Marne, which compelled the Germans entirely 
to change their plan of campaign, saved Paris, and was the 
beginning of a very long end. It seemed so to the unconquer- 
able French; it seemed so to a world holding its breath; it even 



iThis reference is to Woodrow Wilson, at the time President of tlie United States. 



2IO ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

seemed so to keen-eyed observers on the other side of the 
Rhine, whose judgment was not distorted by the overwhelming 
victories of the past month. 

Mr. Bacon characteristically "forgot" to state in the letter 
that he got a number of automobiles to take the wounded from 
the field and that he drove one of them. The missing informa- 
tion is supplied by the manager of the Hotel de Crillon, where 
Mr. Bacon stayed when in Paris. 

Personally and at his own expense he had succeeded in chartering 
three automobiles and day and night without ceasing he travelled 
back and forth between Paris and the front, at that time Meaux and 
Soissons, to bring back the wounded; he would often return on the 
step in order to let them have his place in the car. In those days he 
had the room above mine and sometimes, at two, three, or four o'clock 
in the morning, I would hear him drawing his bath and would go up 
immediately to hear the news. Then he would throw himself fully 
dressed on the bed to wait until daylight so that he might be furnished 
with packages of first edition papers, a good supply of cigars and 
tobacco, and some bottles of cognac, for he would say to me, "this is 
what pleases your dear soldiers the most." Then he would start out 
again requesting me to say, if one of his friends asked for him, that he 
had gone out without knowing when he would return. 

Mr. Bacon's activity soon shifted from Paris to London, from 
war to finance. In a letter of December 17th, he writes: 

The last boat has gone . . . and I am heartbroken and terri- 
bly upset not to come home to you for Christmas, but your cable de- 
cided me. I don't think I could have refrained from coming over 
again to finish up the Hospital matters, which . . . are in a very 
difiicult condition. . . . That is why I went on the Committee, 
and have been spending tedious hours day after day at Neuilly; but it 
is all coming out with flying colors, and the little things, the difficul- 
ties, the obstacles coming principally from the personal equation will 
all be forgotten and will sink into insignificance. The work will remain 
and outlive us all, and the American Hospital work during this awful 
crisis and what it stands for will never be forgotten, and will always 
remain one of the bright spots in our international relations. This is 
my honest conviction and this is why I am making and am asking 
you ... to make big sacrifices. You and I have become too 
much identified with it all to permir me to "lacher" now. The 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 211 

Whitney Unit^ at Juilly is coming along all right, and is playing a big 
part in the development and extension of the whole thing as originally 
hoped for and planned by Herrick, and now the Transport Units, the 
Ford Squads and Sections are going to play a still bigger part, and this 
of late has been my chief interest and is just beginning. I was much 
pleased to-day to get Elliot's cable saying he had money for ten more 
Fords. We can use any number just now if we can get just the right 
kind of volunteer chauffeurs, but it may all change at any minute, as 
everything does. 

The American Hospital and the American Ambulance figure 
largely in Mr. Bacon's letters; they played a large part in his 
thought before our entry into the war and after. The Ameri- 
can Ambulance was Mrs. Bacon's life during all the years of 
the war. She was chairman of the American Committee; she 
adopted, so to speak, the American Ambulance Hospital, which 
means in French, Military Hospital. By personal letters, 
each written in her own handwriting, she raised in America 
the funds for the Ambulance. She made the sacrifices in 
America which Mr. Bacon made in France, and it is with good 
reason that the large wing added to the original American Hos- 
pital is to-day named by the subscribers as an endowment fund 
for "Robert Bacon Ward." 

The manner in which Mr. Bacon became interested in the 
project of the American Ambulance Flospital and his subse- 
quent connection with it were typical of the reliance placed 
upon his sympathy and help by Americans in France as well as 
by the French Government and people. 

The American Ambulance Hospital, or, as it was more 
generally known, the American Ambulance, was the out- 
growth of the little American Hospital just outside the walls of 
Paris. When Mr. Bacon was Ambassador he was deeply 
interested in this hospital, which brought so much comfort, 
greatly needed medical skill and attention to Americans who 
were ill in France. 

When the war came, the American Hospital considered the 
most practical expression of its sympathy for France would be 
the formation of an American Military Hospital. The French 

1 The Whitney Unit. Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney fully equipped a hospital at 
Juilly as an auxiliary to the American Ambulance. During the entire period of the 
war this was managed under her direction and at her personal expense. 



212 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Government learned of this intention with deep gratitude and 
placed at the disposition of the little hospital a large, un- 
finished, high school building, the Lycee Pasteur, to be con- 
verted into a hospital for wounded French soldiers. 

This was an undertaking much too great, of course, for the 
limited personnel and small facilities of the American Hospital 
at that time. Therefore, the Board of Governors immediately 
turned their thoughts to Mr. Bacon and sent a cable to this 
country asking him to undertake the work of raising sufficient 
funds to carry out the project and to interest American 
physicians and surgeons. 

From that time on Mr. Bacon's zeal in the American Ambu- 
lance never flagged. He began with a few of his personal and 
business friends who made the first donations, raised among 
themselves a guarantee fund, which was in keeping with the 
whole spirit of Mr. Bacon and Mr. Bacon's friendships. The 
donors of this fund, which was kept to the last as a guarantee, 
declined in the end to receive any part of it back, but con- 
tributed the full amount of their subscription to the American 
Hospital for twenty free beds in his memory. 

The first body of doctors to go from this country to serve in 
the American Ambulance was from Boston, and represented the 
Harvard University Unit, recruited upon the initiative of 
Mr. Bacon. Dr. Harvey Gushing was at the head, and he was 
assisted by a corps of skilled surgeons and specialists. 

Growing out of the American Ambulance Hospital, and for a 
long while connected with it, was the American Ambulance 
Field Service. The men who drove the ambulances to the front 
were for the most part volunteers from our universities. They 
paid their own passage and bought their own uniforms. The 
ambulances were purchased with money contributed in the 
United States. 

The appeal for the subscribers in the beginning was made 
under the direction of Mr. Bacon and Mrs. Bacon, who was 
chairman of the American Committee responsible for raising 
funds for the Ambulance. Some extent of this work can be 
gained when it is stated that more than $2,000,000 was raised 
by Mrs. Bacon's committee and its branch committees through- 
out the United States. 

In connection with the American Ambulance Field Service 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 213 

it is interesting to recall that at this time, in the early days of 
the war, there was a great and reasonable fear on the part of 
the French people that German sympathizers and spies were 
coming to France on American passports and in the guise of 
Americans. This reasonable fear indeed might have stopped 
the daily work of recruiting for the Ambulance in this country 
had it not been for Mr. Bacon. In the dilemma, the French 
military authorities turned to him, and they accepted very 
gladly and without question his personal assurance that he 
would be responsible for the loyalty of the men selected in 
America and sent abroad to drive ambulances. The French 
Government needed no further assurance than Mr. Bacon's 
word, and it is a matter of record that of the great number of 
young men sent over (about five thousand) not one proved 
disloyal to the cause of the Allies. Their qualifications and 
their references were carefully examined in this country by 
Mr. Bacon's representative before the men were sent abroad. 

Later, when the Field Ambulance Service grew to such large 
proportions that the administration of it by the Hospital was 
difficult, a separate administration was undertaken in this 
country and in France. The head of the American Field 
Ambulance Service in France was Mr. A. Piatt Andrew, after- 
ward a Lieutenant-Colonel in the United States Expeditionary 
Forces. 

In the early months of the war, Mr. Andrew, then at Glou- 
cester, Massachusetts, wrote to his friend, Mr. Bacon, and 
asked his help in obtaining an opportunity to be of service to 
the Allies on the other side. It was a very characteristic letter, 
the tenor of which was: I am relying upon you to find me a job 
where I can be helpful. I do not care what it is as long as I 
can be of service. 

Mr. Bacon gladly endorsed Mr. Andrew's application for 
service, and sent him to the American Ambulance Hospital in 
Paris, where, at first, he drove an ambulance. 

Not content with helping the Hospital and the Field Serv- 
ice, Mr. Bacon established a sanitary train to carry wounded 
from the front to the base hospitals, particularly those in the 
south of France. With a friend, Mr. Alexander Cochran, he 
paid for the expense and upkeep of this train. It was a wonder- 
ful one at that time; a marvel to the French, for it was splen- 



214 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

didly equipped. Painted upon it was an American flag so 
that in those days of our neutrality the people of France who 
saw the train (and they could be counted by the thousands and 
tens of thousands) as it went on its errand of mercy through 
France, might know that the sympathy of the American people 
was with them in this war. 

There is an incident connected with the acknowledgment of 
the fund for the Hospital which is largely overlooked in the 
record. 

In addition to sending funds, Mrs. Bacon's committee sent 
many supplies. At one time it was a serious problem, because 
of the scarcity of shipping, how to get these supplies to France. 
The great need was for coal, and there was doubt whether 
sufficient coal could be procured to keep the patients of the 
Ambulance comfortable. Mr. Bacon went about solving the 
difficulty in his own way, saying nothing except to those most 
closely associated with him, and engaged shipping brokers to 
look for a ship. The brokers finally found one for sale which 
had been built on the Great Lakes. They agreed to buy half 
of it if Mr. Bacon would buy the other half, and he could then 
use the ship to transport coal and other necessary supplies to 
the Hospital in France. Mr, Bacon accepted the proposal, 
and renamed the Lake steamer Barnstable^ in memory of that 
part of Massachusetts where his family had lived for genera- 
tions. 

The Barnstable was an old ship, built only for Lake trade. 
It was a wooden hull steamer, and expensive repairs were 
necessary. One costly experiment after another was tried. 
At one time the brokers, chagrined, as they themselves say, 
at the expense to which Mr. Bacon had been involved by the 
unfortunate adventure, telephoned him that they were willing 
to take the steamer off his hands and eliminate all thoughts of 
sending her to France. Mr. Bacon's reply likewise over the 
telephone was: "I shipped with you for the whole voyage, and 
1 will stick by the ship," 

The Barnstable was never made seaworthy for ocean traffic 
and sometime later she sank at sea before the trans-Atlantic 
trip was attempted. Because of this failure to relieve the 
Hospital during the crisis, there was no mention of what Mr. 
Bacon did in this connection to be found in the record. If it 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 215 

had succeeded it would have been a noteworthy achievement, 
but even then he would have permitted only the barest men- 
tion of his part in the undertaking, x^s it did not succeed, no 
mention was made of the thought, time, effort, and expense 
which he had devoted to this purpose. 

The American Ambulance Hospital which, but for Mr. 
Bacon's help in the beginning could hardly have existed, be- 
came afterward American Military Hospital No. i, was turned 
over as such to our Army, a thoroughly equipped, model in- 
stitution, ready for the care of our wounded when our men 
arrived in France. The committee in this country, headed by 
Mrs. Bacon, was able to meet the expenses of the Hospital 
throughout the war and after the Armistice until the American 
Ambulance closed its doors. 

The American Field Service was able to give their first mili- 
tary experience to many of our young men, who afterward be- 
came officers in our Army, and when our Expeditionary Forces 
arrived in France we were able to turn over to them several 
hundred equipped ambulance units. ^ 

To return to Mr. Bacon's letter of December 17th: • 

What I shall do these next few weeks will depend upon develop- 
ments of all kinds. I am delighted to be with Davy- and Teddy Gren- 
fell.3 It is all of most intense interest and importance, has saved me 
from utter despair.— Davy and Willard Straight'' (who by the way 
appears very well and is most useful to Davy) are here, and I am 
clinging to Davy. I have just this moment decided to go to Paris 
to-morrow morning, principally on an important errand for him, and I 
may be back here again in a few days. If I should happen to be in 
Paris for Xmas, I shall sneak off all alone up to the North and get as 
near to my friends at the G. H. Q. as they will let me. My heart goes 



^Information supplied by Mr. Hereford. 

^Henry P. Davison (i 867-1922). From 1907 a member of the firm of J. P. Morgan 
& Company; chairman of the American Red Cross War Council (1917-1919), becom- 
ing in 1 91 9 president of the international organization of all Red Cross bodies called 
the League of Red Cross Societies. 

^Edward C. Grenfell (1870- ). Director of the Bank of England; member of the 
firm of Morgan, Grenfell & Company, London. 

^Willard D. Straight (1880-1918). In consular and diplomatic service of the United 
States (1905-1909); Major, Adjutant General's Department, American Expeditionary 
Forces (19 17). 



2i6 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

out to them, and if I could get a billet of some sort, I think I should be 
even tempted to stay there. This is our war . . . and every- 
thing is at stake, and I feel more and more every word of that little 
letter which I wrote you from Paris in September in the dead of night, 
and which you were inclined to think too emotional or hysterical. It 
is the solemn truth, and having taken the position that I have, I feel 
an impelling force urging me to take some active part. — I know that I 
am right, but I am at a loss to know what do — (Later) To-night I 
have been dining here with Davy and Teddy and Vivian Smith and 
Charley Whigham and Willard — all Morgan & Co., and I am start- 
ing for Paris early in the morning via Boulogne, where I hope to see 
some of my nice British soldiers. Boulogne is their base now, you 
know, and there are British hospitals there. Davy and I have just 
arranged to spend Xmas together either here or in Paris. We don't 
know which. . . . 

The New Year of 191 5 finds Mr. Bacon in London, and on 
that day he writes to Mrs. Bacon, regretting the "first Xmas 
apart and a pretty sad and lonely one for me," uncertain as to 
his return to America, and the line of work to take up in 
Europe, but certain in his opposition to President Wilson's 
"friendly protest"^ to Great Britain, which country, with 
France, Mr. Bacon contended was fighting America's battle: 

Your cable has come and the New Year is beginning, and I am still 
all up in the air about coming home "permanently" and don't know 
how to answer your question. I am really glad that I stopped here 
with Davy for bigger things are doing than anything I ever had to do 
with before, but nothing should be said even in a whisper, so do not 
mention it even in general terms. 

As I cabled you from Paris I disapprove entirely the President's 

i"The present condition of American foreign trade resulting from frequent seizures 
and detentions of American cargoes destined to neutral European ports has become so 
serious as to require a candid statement of the views of this Government in order that 
the British Government may be fully informed as to the attitude of the United States 
toward the policy which has been pursued by the British authorities during the present 
war. 

"You will, therefore, communicate the following to His Majesty's principal secretary 
of state for foreign affairs, but in doing so you will assure him that it is done in the most 
friendly spirit and in the belief that frankness will better serve the continuance of 
cordial relations between the two countries than silence, which may be misconstrued 
into acquiescence in a course of conduct which this Government cannot but consider 
to be an infringement upon the rights of American citizens." [Telegram of Secretary 
of State Bryan to Ambassador W. H. Page, Washington, December 26, 1914. Special 
Supplement to the American Journal oj International Law, vol. ix (1915), p. 55.] 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 217 

protest. The feeling about this war and what it means to us and to 
the world is so far away from mine that I do not seem to speak the 
same language any more, and I am entirely incapable of understand- 
ing the point of view of my countrymen. If I could really serve 
England or France in even the humblest capacity I should feel it the 
highest duty that I could perform toward my own country. The 
work for the wounded, which appeals to me so much, the excuse that 
that gives me for keeping in touch with the armies would fade into 
insignificance beside a real opportunity for service, and what could 
possibly be finer, than to help even a little these great peoples in their 
death struggle, a struggle that is as much ours as theirs. 

I should like to put in an appeal to our people to understand a little 
— to give a generous thought to the British sailors who have to enforce 
and interpret these very complex rules of international law . , . 
when every pound of copper which slips through Scandinavia, Italy, 
or Holland lengthens just so much the duration of this war. I confess 
that I sympathize with the British sailor and the man who gave him 
his orders. 

Why won't my countrymen be a Httle more human and less technical 
and academic and unsympathetic? England is taking this slap in the 
face, or rather kick in the stomach, splendidly, intelligently, con- 
siderately, with true self-restraint and wisdom, but do you suppose 
they do not/^t"/ it — this "friendly protest"! . . . 

Four days later, Mr. Bacon wrote again from London, and 
spoke in very general terms of financial transactions which he 
had barely mentioned in previous letters. Even to Mrs. 
Bacon he does not go into details, and he has, as it were, his 
finger on his lips in warning as he writes: 

I am off again to-morrow morning . . . and I guess you think 
I am pretty restless, but as I cabled you to-day, I am mighty glad I 
stayed to be with Davy, for big things are going on, and not to be in 
them when you have the chance would be unworthy. Not a word 
must be breathed about it, but international finance is going to be 
perhaps the most important factor of this war. We are meeting all 
sorts of big people — interesting is not the word adequately to describe 
it. I have seen Arthur Lee, too, and Sir Alfred Keogh, head of the 
R.A.M.C., and if Arthur Lee would only take me on to help him 
"inspect," I should consider it a great opportunity. And then I must 
go back to the Ambulance work in Paris, for you and I have assumed 
too much responsibility for it and its development, to leave it entirely 
to the tender mercies of others. The Whitney Unit, so-called, must 



21 8 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

be opened this week at Juilly, and needs tender care and eternal vigi- 
lance. . . . It is going to be a fine hospital in every respect, and if 
I can only help keep up the motive power to overcome difficulties and 
discouragements on the part of the doctors, it will come out with 
flying colors. . . . 

I can't tell you who the men are that Davy sees most of, but 
Saturday I took him to Cliveden^ to see Nancy- and we met 
several new ones; Curzon of Kedleston,^ Geoffrey Robinson of the 
Thncs and others. . . . Friday I went for the night to Hatfield 
House^ which will interest Elliot. — They are just the nicest people in 
England and the house — well— Mother, you would certainly be crazy 
about it! I spent the evening in the cellar vault looking at treasures 
of manuscript letters of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth, and 
dozens of others, and in the morning when I looked out, there was the 
Army of England, 500 or more, drilling on the terrace. It was almost 
too much for silly, old emotional me, but I am queer as you well 
know. . . . 

After expressing the hope — vain it seemed to him then — 
that the American people could be taught to be "a little more 
generous in their interpretations of International Law," Mr. 
Bacon closes with the characteristic reflection: "I suppose 
I am out of joint with our public opinion as it is led by Wilson 
and Bryan. There again I suppose I ought to keep my mouth 
shut, but I can't." 

London, January, 191 5. 
I am off to Paris in the morning . . . and have two minutes 
before dinner to send this line. Will you send these clippings to my 
friends, one to Root, one to Scott, and one to Woodrow Wilson, if you 
can possibly get it to him. These are my sentiments, and my per- 
spective is all right, no obsession or emotion, but a clear vision. I 
have had an interesting day in Parliament after lunching with Sir 
Edward Grey, and I am dining to-night with the Lord Chief with 
whom I had a talk this morning. 

1" Cliveden," in Taplow, is the name of Viscount Astor's estate. 

'Lady Astor. 

'The Right Honourable the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859- ). A dis- 
tinguished English statesman. At one time Under-Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs (1895-1898); Viceroy and Governor-General of India (1899-1905). Member 
of the Cabinet since 191 5, at present holding the post of Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs. 

'Since 1607, Hatfield House has been the historic home of the Cecil family, of which 
the Marquess of Salisbury is the head. 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 219 

Harvey^ is here and he has reminded me of a long talk he and I had 
last October, when he didn't at all see it as I did. He now says that 
he is entirely convinced that I was right, and has told many people so. 

It is just a little satisfaction after having been pretty well doubted 
by most of my friends for a year. If only Woodrow Wilson would see 
the truth, and rise to his life's opportunity. 

And again from London, on a Wednesday in January, he writes: 

Just while I am waiting . . . to go out to dine with the 
Governor.2 I will send you a little line. I am off to Paris in the 
morning, so as to be able to come back here on the 27th, if necessary, 
to meet the Harvard Unit.^ I have been on the jump these three days 
and have seen many interesting people at the Foreign Office, War 
Office and Bank and in the city, and now I am keen for Paris and the 
Ambulance. . . . 

International finance in London, the Ambulance in Paris, the 
Harvard Unit in London on the 27th filled him with pride. He was, 
however, depressed at the way things were going in America: 

I am boiling with renewed indignation at the flagrant destruction 
by Germans of munition factories at home, and again the Ancona,^ but 



^George Harvey (1864- ). American Ambassador to Great Britain (1921), 
formerly editor of the North American Review and Harvey's Weekly. 

nValter, first Lord Cunliffe (1855-1920). Director of the Bank of England (1895), 
Deputy Governor (191 1), Governor (1913-1918), serving a longer period as Governor 
than any of his predecessors. During the World War he was associated with all of the 
financial problems of Great Britain. 

^The work of the Harvard University Surgical Unit, whose members are now coming 
back from Europe on the steamship Megantic, is what was to have been expected of an 
organization made of such fine material and so admirably equipped. Yet even if 
looked for, the results are worthy of the highest praise. 

This unit, made up of 27 medical officers and 103 nurses, was organized in April, 191 5, 
largely through the instrumentality of Robert Bacon, former Ambassador to France, 
and Sir William Osier. Upon arriving in France the unit was assigned to British 
General Hospital No. 22, at Camiers. Here it attended 126,000 wounded, together 
with 26,000 more at casualty clearing stations. The British officers and men wounded 
in France totalled approximately 1,833,000 so that this single unit attended almost a 
tenth part of all the British hurt. 

All the more notable is this record of service because it was undertaken as a friendly 
help to Britain before our own country entered the war. [Boston Post, January 
30. 1919-1 

•^The Ancona, on November 7, 191 5, was fired upon by a submarine. The facts and 
the action taken by the Government of the United States are set forth in three para- 
graphs of Secretary of State Lansing's note of December 6, 1915: 

"Reliable information obtained from American and other survivors who were 



020 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

of course Wilson will do nothing. It is sickening here now that the 
note has arrived. ... It has made a profound impression, very 
unpleasant and serious. 

Mr. Bacon's next letter is written from Paris under date of 
February 5, 191 5: 

I have been so uncertain . . . about what I ought to do, so 
troubled to think that you feel that I ought to have come home long 
ago, so pulled by the different commitments here, and by the tre- 
mendous interest of being in touch with some of the biggest things 
that are going en, that I confess I have not known what to say to you. 
My cables have been so unsatisfactory, I have not been able to make 
you know. I seem to you to have been carried away and taken off my 
feet by this war, and by my intense sympathy for England and France. 
But these last days I have been able to see clearer. I am really going 
to try to chuck it all. The Hospital matters will be going better soon, 
and the Relief matters with Hanotaux, — and he will have decided 
about his trip to the United States, and perhaps Bryce will go and 
to-day or to-morrow I am going North again to the British G. H. Q. to 
try and get out of going, as I sort of said I would, to work for a while 
with the R. A. M. C. and the British Red Cross, both of which are 
now under one man, one head, Sir Arthur Sloggett, with my little 
friend General O'Donnell as 2nd in Command, and Arthur Lee a sort 
of "liaison" between them all, and the big men in England. 

You see, there is going to be a great development of the British 

passengers on the steamship Ancona shows that on November 7th a submarine flying the 
Austro-Hungarian flag fired a solid shot toward the steamship; that thereupon the 
Ancona attempted to escape, but being overhauled by the submarine she stopped; 
after that a brief period elapsed and before the crew and passengers were all able to 
take to the boats the submarine fired a number of shells at the vessel and finally tor- 
pedoed and sank her while there were yet many persons on board; and that by gunfire 
and foundering of the vessel a large number of persons lost their lives or were seri- 
ously injured, among whom were citizens of the United States. . . 

"As the good relations of the two countries must rest upon a common regard for law 
and humanity, the Government of the United States cannot be expected to do other- 
wise than to demand that the Imperial and Royal Government denounce the sinking 
of the Ancona as an illegal and indefensible act; that the officer who perpetrated the 
deed be punished; and that reparation by the payment of an indemnity be made for the 
citizens of the United States who were killed or injured by the attack on the vessel. 

"The Government of the United States expects that the Austro-Hungarian Govern- 
ment, appreciating the gravity of the case, will accede to its demand promptly; and it 
rests this expectation on the belief that the Austro-Hungarian Government will not 
sanction or defend an act which is condemned by the world as inhumane and barbar- 
ous, which is abhorrent to all civilized nations, and which has caused the death of 
innocent American citizens." 




Robert Bacon in the Ser\hf. oi ihk R. A. M. C. 











I'Lre i:n Takuknoin 
Where Mr. Bacon grot his first wound, 1914 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 221 

Army medical and health service, naturally, as the army more than 
doubles in numbers, and there will be much to do in the rear.— Well, 
they have been good enough to say that I might come and learn the 
whole hospital situation and scheme and perhaps be of some little use. 
The dream of possibly being of use to some one has appealed to me so 
strongly, as you can imagine, that I couldn't help responding to the 
suggestion, but I guess I am an old fool, and the dream is passed, but I 
must go up and gradually pull out. To-day I am taking up the 
Governor of the Bank of England, Davy's friend. Lord Cunliffe, and 
Lloyd George and others are going in other cars, but I think Cham- 
poiseau and I will lead the way. I wish I could talk more about it all. 
I took Teddy Grenfell out to Juilly yesterday, Meaux, Betz, Nanteuil, 
Senlis. ... He was tremendously impressed too, with the Am- 
bulance at Neuilly, your Ambulance ... for no one has done 
more than you, and to you alone do they owe their continued success. 

Two days later Mr. Bacon telegraphed to Mrs. Bacon: 

London Feb 7-19 15 
Came over via north by automobile with Chancellor^ and Governor.^ 
Staying with Governor. Especial purpose to see Bryce with whom 
lunching to-day. Returning north to-morrow to see Arthur Lee. 
Dearest Love. 

The next day Mr. Bacon wrote a hurried line, giving an 
account of his visit with Lord Bryce, 

Claridge's Hotel 
Brook Street, W. [London] 
Feb. 8, 15. 
Dear Jamesie, 

Oh how I wish you, my friend, could be here for a few hours to hear 
it all from this side ''audi alteram partem.'" 

I had five hours with Lord Bryce yesterday and it was real in- 
tellectual pabulum. You probably think from my telegrams that 
I am carried away and emotional. I never was so calm and serious 
in my life. — Much love. 

R. B. 



^The Right Honourable Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
Baron Cunliffe, Governor of the Bank of England, 



Ill ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Late in February, or on March i, 191 5, he writes from 
London in the old famiHar strain: 

It is with a heavy heart . . . that I shall see the Juilly party 
sail away to-day without me, but I believe that I am right in 
staying on, for the Lusitania which ... I expect to take next 
Saturday. . . . The prospect of seeing these men this coming 
week at this critical rime when they all want me to stay, and that per- 
haps I may be able to help a little is too much for me. Bryce I have 
seen a lot, dined with him the other day, then my lunch with the 
Prime Minister and Sir Edward [Grey] at Montague House, where 
they were asked to meet me, and the opportunity to see Lloyd George 
and the Governor of the Bank of England, who are doing such mar- 
vels in international and narional finance, and Harcourt and Mc- 
Kenna, and the others, all yearning for our sympathy, while we are 
protesting against pretty much everything they do in their life and 
death struggle. 

I am interrupted by a telegraph as follows: "If possible come 
Paris. Fear serious complications Hospital!" 

Nor was he to take the next boat: "I can't tell you with 
what pangs of regret," he writes in a letter of March 5th, from 
London : 

I have had to give up getring home .... I made such a 
big effort to leave last week and arrived here Friday with my ticket 
all taken to sail on the Philadelphia .... and here I have 
been chafing, champing at the bit from hour to hour, and not a 
chance to get away until to-day, when it is finally announced that 
Adriatic goes to-morrow, and to-day I have decided not to risk ten 
days at sea with never a word. 

This last phase of the war, which has broken in upon our lives, and 
upset the even tenor of our ways, is but a momentary and superficial 
incident in our lives. — We have something big and fine and tender 
and generous which is worth everything else in the world and will be 
bigger and finer every day. 

How I long to tell you all about the great international world things, 
which have appealed to me so strongly of late. 

This next week is going to be a momentous week in the history of 
this war — in the tide of affairs of the world perhaps. 

Whether or not England and France, the Allies, and the Httle old 
U. S. pull apart and thereby affect the destinies of the world is going to 
develop perhaps. 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 223 

The American people are very far away and I am going to work 
hard this week, behind the scenes, never to be known, to help a Httle 
in holding them together. This is what I am staying for, another 
week, another fortnight perhaps. 

Sunday, "i8th of April in '75. 
hardly a man is now alive, &c." 
Still in London . . . having decided at the last moment to wait 
a few days for answers to my cables. Just now I ought to be in three 
places at once, London, Paris, and "over yonder" in the North. But 
keen as I am to get away I must not neglect the things I have begun 
here so for a few days more hereabout I am. I motored down yester- 
day p. M. to see G. Robinson at Nancy's and incidentally beat him 
at tennis "after tea," the first stroke of exercise I have had since July. 
Returning after dinner at about 11:30 I was stopped twice and my 
name taken by army patrols who were on the lookout, I suppose, for 
cars which are said to act as pilots for Zeppelins. I am leaving in 
about an hour for Headley near Epsom to call upon Lord CunlifFe, 
the Governor of the Bank, whom I have not yet been able to see, so 
busy and surmene is everyone, and to-morrow I am lunching with 
. . . to meet the head of the Canadian Red Cross. This is all just 
while I am waiting for my cables from Root and Lawrence, both of 
which are most important for me to get before I leave for France. 
Jack will be back from Paris to-morrow I think, and there are many 
big things in the air during the next few weeks. Tell Harry Davison 
I miss him here very much. . . . 

Mr. Bacon's letter under date of November 30th is the last 
which he wrote from Europe in 191 5: 

I am spending a gloomy week in London . . . and I wonder 
what you and all your little brood are doing and thinking. . 

I read the telegrams from home about the German activities and 
the notes of protest which wound England and France to the quick, 
wounds that will never be forgotten. — The hospital unit from Har- 
vard arrived all right and will go on to France in a few days. 

It seems Hkely that there will not be so many wounded on the 
Western front during these winter months, so our numbers at Neuilly 
may fall off. I am not sorry on the whole as we were beginning to 
try to do just a little more than could be well done especially in the 
transportation service. 

I don't know what they would do without you, for I realize how 
much harder and harder it is to get the money, and the people in 



224 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Paris seem to think that money will drop from Heaven. Then it is 
almost impossible to keep the supply of drivers of the right sort. 

We now have four units with the armies, and the Service in Paris 
is shorthanded in any emergency. ... 

I should go back on Friday, as I am going to lunch with Sir Edward 
Grey on Thursday. I spent Sunday with the Cunliffes in the country 
and Mr. and Mrs. Teddy Grenfell were there. 

I am lunching with our Ambassador to-morrow and am meeting a 
very interesting man to-night at dinner. 

After a week or so more in Paris I shall be ready to come home. 
Not later than the i8th, and I hope the 13th, in order to get home to 
you for Christmas. . . . 

How would you like to go with me to Washington for a week on the 
26th! The meeting of our Listitute of International Law lasts a 
week. Root will be there, and Jamesie wants me to be there. We 
might stay at the Shoreham if we can get good rooms. We haven't 
many friends in Washington now but if you think well of it, send 
right away for rooms as there will be a big crowd at that time. You 
will see from the enclosed clipping that others feel as I do about Wil- 
son's Thanksgiving Proclamation. ... I wonder if we really 
care! Not, I am afraid, as long as we can gloat over our prosperity! 
Oh, I wish I had a voice, to cry out the truth. I will not beHeve that 
we would not respond, if we realized the great truth, but Wilson has 
decreed that we are to let them fight it out over here. Let them 
fight, let them bleed and bleed and suffer in the battles for our princi- 
ples, our ideals, for everything that we really stand for or used to 
stand for. Little France is the avant-garde. She will defend us with 
her life's blood. England will go on, too, and Russia, because they 
have vital interests at stake; and we are safe, and we will go on and 
sell our pork, and stand up for our trade rights, and " insist'" upon our 
version, and we ''will not suffer" these greedy nations to curtail for one 
moment the opportunity for our beef packers to make an unconscion- 
able profit ! Why should we ! Why should Mr. Armour be prevented 
from selling his wares to Germany! Wicked France and England 
to suggest such a thing. Hurrah for our prosperity, and we will 
reelect Wilson and we will be let alone in Peace. 

I wonder if this is the kind of Peace that Christ would have preached 
and taught. 

But he did get home and he stayed at home long enough to 
visit the Mexican border, where our troops, among them his 
sons, Robert and Caspar, were encamped, and to throw himself 
body and soul into the campaign for preparedness, to practise 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 225 

in fact what he preached in word, by going with his son into 
the training camp at Plattsburg, and to make the run for the 
Senate on the platform of preparedness. These duties done 
—for he looked upon them as such — he turned again toward 
Europe, sailing on the St. Louis, from New York, in December, 
1916, 

"We are not off yet," he said in a letter written aboard the 
steamer, snowbound in port: 

And somehow I am not half as brave as I thought I was. I just 
hate leaving you, and this is the last time — war or no war. Where 
I go you go too. I do hope you won't find it an impossible tour de 
force to come on Thursday or Saturday — Finland or Chicago. I 
felt that I had better go and drop everything in order to get back. 
. . . But I think the moral effect of going is the main thing. 
You come too ... I really think the moment favor- 
able, and the impossible it seems to you, and the more things you 
have on your back, the more reason for cutting and running. It's 
the best way and it enables you to take hold again with a fresh 
start and a new perspective. 

This terrible World War^ has turned everything upside down, but 
it's too big in every way to keep away from, or get away from, and 
we Americans must pay our share in some way, and our inordinate 
and unconscionable prosperity, and disregard of our obligations and 
willingness to go on in the old way — no real robust sympathy and 
compassion in our hearts, and lives, for the agony and tragedy of all 
the rest of the world — makes me sick, and I want to wear a hair shirt, 
but I have no courage. I am just as bad as the others — tied to old 
standards and habits and unable to rise above it all, although my 
vision of its meaning is as clear as day. The world — our world — is 
not lucky enough to be snuffed out as was Pompeii. We have got 
to go through a long sickening decadence. Theodore [Roosevelt] is 
right — I have always known he was about the only one who under- 
stands, but he has more courage than I, I think, or rather more 
prompt intellectual decision and high purpose . . . 

We may muddle through a few years — a few months — a few dec- 
ades even, before the crash, but "where there is no vision the people 
perish," and our national soul is not revealed. 

Come away . . . and let's really give up something. The 
children and grandchildren will be the better for it, although they 
don't understand it as I do now. — Have I the courage to break away 

^He was one of the first to use the term, now well-nigh universal. 



226 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

from the old fetters, and brave public opinion and misunderstanding! 
and try to be a crusader and pioneer — a leader? 

He had the courage/ and he was a leader. From the Crillon, 
in Paris, he wrote on January 3, 191 7: 

I wired you yesterday that I was homesick and afraid that com- 
plications at the Ambulance would keep me here a couple of weeks 
more. If I do not get away on the 13th, I shall miss my big meeting 
on the 25th in Washington, and I hate to do that. It is so hard to 
know the relative importance of things! . . . The personal equa- 
tion and differences of opinion make everything ten times harder 
than necessary. Meanwhile, the work of the hospital goes on and 
justifies all the unselfish and thankless tasks which you . . are ac- 
complishing. . . . Without your courage and indefatigable 
vigilance the work must have stepped. I hate to think of you having 
to begin pretty soon to write letters to all the contributors of beds to 
renew the subscriptions. . . . 

Wilson's peace note and the replies are of course the principal sub- 
jects of international interest. I confess I am about as much in ac- 
cord with that gentleman's apparent policy as I have been since the 
beginning of the war. 

By way of further comment he adds, "The boy's funeral 
at the front was very touching and impressive." This is his 
last letter from the other side during the period of i\merican 
neutrality. 

The funeral to which Mr. Bacon referred and the incidents 
connected with it are stated by A. Piatt Andrew: 

On Sunday, the 24th of December, 1916, a telegram came to me in 
Paris from Section One at La Grange aux Bois, telling of the sudden 
death from pneumonia of one of the boys of the Section, Howard 
Lines. His father and mother lived in Paris, and I had performed 
the painful duty of telling them the unexpected and terrible news. I 



^The Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts awarded a bronze 
medal to Mr. Bacon, then Secretary of State, because on October ii, 1907, he "jumped 
from the Harvard coaching launch and swam in strong current and cold water, fully 
clothed, about forty feet to the assistance of two men clinging to a capsized canoe near 
Cottage Farm Bridge, Charles River." {Biennial Report of The Humane Society oj the 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1907 and 1908, p. 30.) 

He refused to accept the medal, on the ground that he had only done what any other 
man would have done under the circumstances. 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 227 

was just arranging in the early afternoon to leave for the front to 
attend the burial, when Mr. Bacon unexpectedly appeared. He had 
just arrived in Paris, and when I told him where I was going, and 
suggested that it would mean much to the Section and to the family 
if he were to accompany me, he instantly agreed to go. We picked 
up his knapsack on the way, and arrived by motor at La Grange aux 
Bois long after dusk. We slept that night on stretchers on the floor 
of a farm house where the Section was quartered, and the next morn- 
ing, a cold, gray Christmas morning, we followed the little funeral 
cortege through the forlorn single street of a war-ridden village to the 
military cemetery on a neighbouring hill. On the way back Mr. 
Bacon expressed a desire to visit the hospital where Lines had died — a 
group of rough, temporary wooden barracks used successively for 
hospital purposes by the troops that followed each other through this 
sector. With the Medecin Chef we passed through the long line of 
cots, with their silent poilus pallid in the dim light that came through 
the linen windows; the floor of rough boards creaked and yielded as 
we walked; there were no chairs or tables; the operating room was 
separated from the ward by only a canvas sheet. It was no better 
or no worse than hundreds of other hospitals at the front, but it was a 
grim place to suffer in and perhaps to die in, with only forlorn and 
more or less decrepit soldiers to administer its meagre comforts. 

Mr. Bacon was much moved by the scene, perhaps the more so be- 
cause it was Christmas morning, for I recall his turning to me and re- 
marking, with a kind of pathetic smile, "Merry Christmas, Doc," as if 
he had suddenly recalled the contrast of that morning with Christ- 
mases of happier years. 

He asked the surgeon in charge many questions about the possibility 
of doing something to increase the comfort of the wounded soldiers, 
and before he left he gave the surgeon a little sum of money with 
which to buy oranges and cakes, and anything else that they might 
like to have. 

This is the incident as related by Mr. Andrew, and the 
consequences are likewise from his pen: 

Perhaps a fortnight later I passed again through La Grange aux 
Bois, and stopped for a moment in the same hospital. The Medecin 
Chef had a message and a gift to send Mr. Bacon. The wounded 
soldiers, out of appreciation for his tender feeling for them, had carved 
two canes with appropriate inscriptions which they wanted to send 
to him, and also they had composed a touching letter of appreciation 
which each of them had signed. 



228 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

The letter, which Mr. Bacon carefully preserved among his 
papers and brought with him, is dated January 8, 1917, and 
says in part: 

The wounded and sick of Ambulance 1 1-16 beg Mr. Bacon to accept 
their very respectful sentiments and thank him for his gift. 

They, like every one of France, know the sympathy and the inex- 
haustible generosity of which they have been the object on the part of 
their friend of the Great Republic. They are and will always remain 
deeply touched by it. 

Accompanying this letter was one to Mr. Bacon from the 
surgeon in charge, informing him that further to express their 
gratitude, they were sending their benefactor "two canes 
carved by one of their number, begun at Verdun during the 
'marmitage,' finished in the hospital." 

The letters and canes Mr. Andrew left at Mr. Bacon's hotel, 
on returning to Paris, and within a few hours he received, by 
special messenger, the following letter from Mr. Bacon; 

Thursday, January 11, 1917. 
Dear Doc, 

I cannot begin to tell you how touched and pleased I am by the 
sweet, wonderful feeling of those splendid men. Words fail, of course, 
and something grips my throat and tears run down my cheeks as I 
read the simple names and try to realize what it all means. Would 
to God that our country could know and understand. 

Tell them at La Grange something for me, something of the pride 
I should feel if I were only fighting and suff^ering with them for their 
cause which is mine. Theirs will be the triumph and the glory when 
victory comes, as come it will as surely as day follows night. Tell 
them that I shall prize their souvenirs beyond everything, and that 
I shall pass them on to my sons and my grandsons in grateful memory. 

Say to the Medecin Chef something of what you, of all others, 
know that I feel. It will be for me a bright omen for the New Year, 
which God grant may be a happier one for them and theirs. 

Ever yours, 

Robert Bacon. ^ 

'In an earlier letter to Mr. Andrew, Mr. Bacon had said: "Poor old France! How she 
bleeds and suffers, and what a wonderful revelation of a national soul!" Upon this, 
Mr. Andrew comments: "I know of no one who felt more profoundly the meaning of 
war, or who longed more ardently to see our country do its part. He spent himself 
early and late, restlessly and anxiously seeking, now by this means, now by that, to 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 229 

The value of Mr. Bacon's varied activities in Europe from 
the outbreak of the war until the entry of the United States 
will never be fully known. That they were not without ap- 
preciation and recognition in well-informed quarters is evident 
from Lord Cunliffe's letter of December 2, 191 5: 

Your letter calls for no answer — in one sense — in another It does. 
For I feel impelled to write and tell you how differently we all feel 
about you from what you think of yourself. Believe me you are doing 
a very big bit for the great cause. You make us realize that the best 
of America is wholeheartedly with us in the fight. 

Truth has always been in a minority. But always in the end it has 
prevailed, and out of the greatest seeming failure in the history of the 
world has come the most wonderful triumph. Like you I am terribly 
given to grieving over the things I cannot help or hinder. The other 
people who won't see eye to eye and refuse to do the things we are so 
sure are the right things to do. Personally It has been a stumbling 
block to me all my life, it is so apt to hold one back from doing what 
one can — not to be able to do all one would. Go on sympathizing — 
leavening — encouraging. You help more than you know, and I am 
sure there Is many a soldier who blesses you — but don't be unhappy. 
America Is a "live country" and all will yet be well. 

CUNLIFFE. 

Certainly the most vivid account of what Mr. Bacon really 
stood for in France during these terrible months cannot be 
better told than in these words of Colonel S. Lyle Cummins, 
British Army Medical Service^ 



A. 



show sympathy with France, to help those who were the victims of the war, and to 
spread throughout our country an understanding that the cause of the Allies was the 
cause of civilization itself, and that we could not without shame remain indifferent and 
apart. To him the war was indeed a religion, and its battles a crusade." 

'In a letter to Mrs. Bacon inclosing the above appreciation of Mr. Bacon's services to 
the British during the period of American neutrality, Colonel Cummins said, 

January 3rd, 1921. 

Royal Army Medical College. 

(University of London) 

Grosvenor Road, 

London, S. W. L 

Dear Mrs. Bacon, 

I have heard from Mr. Grenfell that a Mr. J. [amesj Brown Scott is writing a 
sketch of your husband's life and that you would welcome a few lines from me about 
his doings at G. H. Q. in 1914 and after. It is a great and real pleasure to me to have 
an opportunity of doing this. My few lines give but a poor impression of all that he 



230 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

On September 9th or loth, at Coulommlers, just after the Battle 
of the Marne, Major General d'Oyly Snow was carried into the town 
suffering from injuries caused by a fall from his horse and was brought 
to me for treatment. I found that he was suffering from what seemed 
to be a fracture of the pelvis, but the case was an obscure one and 
complete rest, radiographical examination, and skilled and deliberate 
treatment were obviously necessary. How were these to be obtained 
at such a moment and how was the injured officer likely to stand a 
journey of several days to Le Mans in an improvised ambuJance 
train? Full of perplexity as to how to cope with these difficulties, I 
was just about to arrange for his transfer to the Railway Station when 
I was told that there was an American Red Cross officer in the town 
with a motor car fitted up to carry wounded and that he would be 
willing to help. A big man with the kindest and cheeriest face that 
one could imagine followed closely on this information and I was in- 
troduced to Mr. Robert Bacon. From that moment all my difficul- 
ties disappeared. Robert Bacon had a suitable car, he was ready to 
take the General straight to Paris, and he knew just where to take him: 
to the American Ambulance at Neuilly-sur-Seine. I only saw him for 
a moment on that occasion. It did not require much knowledge of 
psychology to realize that, with this man, General Snow would be in 
strong and capable hands. We nodded good-bye, the car disappeared 
in the direction of Paris and the incident closed. 

Our next meeting was about ten days later at Fere-en-Tardenois, 
where I was working as Staff Officer to Colonel (now General) 
O'Donnell, the Deputy Director of Medical Services at General Head 
Quarters. We were hard put to it to deal adequately with the large 
numbers of casualties from the fighting on the Aisne and our difficul- 
ties were much the greater from the fact that, at that time, we were 
without any motor ambulance convoys. In the midst of our efforts 



did for us or of all that I and others felt about him. He was a splendid example to 
us all and I cannot tell you how deeply I loved and respected him or how much his 
friendship meant and still means to me. The news of his death was a crushing blow. 
I wanted to write to you but somehow I felt at the time that it would be an intrusion 
upon your grief and bereavement and then, later, it seemed too late. Robert Bacon 
was and is, for me, the very highest and noblest example of what a man can be. 
There was a magnetic attraction about him that everyone felt; but, above and beyond 
this, he seemed to represent the highest and kindest and noblest human ideals. I 
have by me, as a cherished souvenir, his last present to me, given me the day he left. 
France; his book for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, For 
Better Relations with Our Latin American Neighbours. How I wish that the 
spirit which animates it were more common amongst our statesmen to-day. 
Believe me, now and always, 

Very sincerely yours, 

Lyle Cummins. 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 231 

the same big man that had arrived so opportunely at Coulommiers 
was shown into my office and said, in his quiet way, that he happened 
to have one or two little cars fitted to carry patients and that he would 
be glad of our permission to help. Just at that time, there had been a 
little difficulty with the British Red Cross, our firm ally and support 
through the subsequent periods of the war. One or two Red Cross 
officials, not yet acquainted with official routine and animated by an 
intense desire to help those who were suffering, had gone straight up 
to the ambulances at Braisne and had removed wounded directly to 
Red Cross units farther back. This well-meant intervention had 
caused much difficulty to the branch of the staff concerned with 
tracing and reporting casualties and, as a result. Red Cross effort in 
the immediate battle zone was not being encouraged. But here was a 
man who seemed to understand the official side of things and who, 
instead of attempting to evade what were often regarded as the re- 
strictions of "red tape," had come straight to General Head Quarters 
with his cars and was asking for sanction to do anything that we 
might think useful. I brought him in to see Colonel O'Donnell who 
took him up and presented him to the Adjutant General, Sir Nevil 
Macready. Nobody could refuse Robert Bacon anything, as I soon 
found out; and, besides, our needs of just such help as he could offer 
were urgent in the extreme. The little town of Braisne close behind 
the fighting line was full of wounded; the Church at Fere, as well as 
the Clearing Hospital at the Station, was full also. Bacon was at 
once given a free hand. He took some of his cars up to Braisne, sent 
them off full in charge of one of his assistants, and came back to Fere 
to collect three officers that I specially wanted to have sent straight to 
Paris. These three officers, brought in wounded the night before, 
were in urgent need of careful treatment and were lying on mattresses 
in the aisle of the church, the hospitals being full and ambulance 
trains all wanted at Braisne. They were Colonel Lowther of the 
Guards, Captain Amery of the Black Watch, and Major Deshon of 
the Royal Field Artillery; the two latter old friends of mine whom I 
had served with in Egypt. Robert Bacon took them, all three, into 
his car and made them wonderfully comfortable considering the 
circumstances. 

Off they started) and it was with a feeling of real delight that I saw 
them vanish round a corner of the road and knew that they would 
be in a comfortable hospital in Paris before nightfall. Next day 
Bacon was with us again, putting his whole heart and soul into the 
work and rendering invaluable help in a quiet, unobtrusive, and self- 
less way that simply won our love and respect from the start. Per- 
haps an attempt to give a word-picture of him may be out of place, or 
perhaps even open to the charge of sentimentality, in an account 



232 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

which is primarily intended to record his work; but I like to think of 
him in that setting of war and confusion, a big straight man with crisp 
grayish hair and a brown tanned healthy skin, the very picture of a 
SQlj^ier — and mightily distressed to be in plain clothes at a time when 
all his ideals had been dashed aside by the German invasion of Bel- 
gium and when his whole soul was stirred by the great adventure in 
which we were engaged. War and confusion there might be around 
him but there was, at least, no trace of confusion in those clear kind 
eyes of his. He always seemed to know exactly when and how to help 
and when to keep out of the way of very busy men and yet be at hand 
if needed. So far we had met almost daily, but not at all intimately. 
I had taken the greatest liking to Mr. Bacon, as had everybody else 
in our little team, but he was still almost a stranger to me. On 
September 23rd, however, an event occurred which gave me an op- 
portunity of getting to know him better. The long railway journey 
along the lines of communication and the confusion incident to our 
change of bases had combined to make the forwarding of medical 
stores and equipment very slow and difficult. As a result, the field 
medical units were getting very short of dressings and other neces- 
saries at the Front. It was suggested that I should go by car to 
Paris to purchase and bring up with me in a Hght lorry all the supplies 
that I could obtain. Robert Bacon had taken a brother officer of 
mine. Major Percy Evans, to Paris for the same purpose a few days 
before and the stores brought to the battle zone on that occasion had 
been of the greatest service. To my great delight, Mr. Bacon of- 
fered to take me with him in his car, the lorry following as best it 
might, to meet us at Paris on its arrival. I can recall vividly the 
sense of exhilaration with which I started. From the first day of 
mobilization to that moment I had been very hard at work and was 
beginning to feel the strain. Now, in a fine car, driven by a first-rate 
chauffeur, an old racing hand called, I think, Champoiseau,we were 
starting off on a run to Paris and leaving the awful problems and 
anxieties of the Aisne Battle far behind us for the moment. And 
from the very first my companion fascinated me. He talked of 
many things; and every word that he said seemed to fit in exactly 
with what was in my inmost heart. His views about the war, his 
wise, tolerant, unprejudiced opinions about men and things, his love 
and sympathy for what was best in British life and work, and, above 
all, the complete absence of any trace of "side" or "swagger"; all 
these things became more and more impressed on me as we proceeded 
on our journey, and by the time we had accomplished our mission and 
had got back, once more, to Fere-en-Tardenois, I knew that I had had 
the rare pleasure and privilege of making a friend of the kind that 
really influences one's life. I know quite surely, too, that Robert 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 132 

Bacon realized then, and remembered afterward throughout our 
friendship, that he was an influence and inspiration to me. I can 
truthfully say that I never spent an hour with him that I did not feel 
the better for it and, in many days of hard trial and perplexity during 
the whole war, the mere thought of Robert Bacon and what he would 
be likely to do or say was an unfailing source of help and support. It 
is only rarely that one meets a fellow-creature that has this singular 
effect of strength and inspiration. I do not think I have ever felt it 
in the same degree as with Bacon; and I do not think it likely that I 
was alone in this. 

Work now increased more and more for us all and Robert Bacon 
became a sort of unofficial member of our Head Quarters. He spent 
as much of his time as he could in Braisne and the Advanced Area 
where he was, by this time, a familiar and welcome figure, always 
ready to help with transport or in any other way. At this period, we 
formed the first of the Motor Ambulance Convoys and here came a 
great opportunity to help of which Bacon took full advantage. He 
and Doctor Gros organized a highly efficient detachment of American 
Red Cross cars and drivers which was officially attached to the 
regular ambulance convoys and worked with them in the most 
complete harmony, remaining at this arduous and dangerous duty 
for many months during the most trying part of the war. 

With the move from the Aisne to the Northern Area, we lost, for a 
time, the services and the company of Robert Bacon as he had to go, 
first to England and then on to America, on business of an even more 
important kind than that which he had undertaken at the Front. 

As an instance of his thoughtful kindness, I may add that, when in 
London, busy as he was with affairs of the first magnitude, he still 
found time to go to Ashtead in Surrey, where my wife was living, to 
assure her that all was well with me and that she need have no anxiety. 
This was quite characteristic of Robert Bacon. 

Early in 191 5 he reappeared at General Head Quarters and became 
a member of the little mess in which General O'Donnell, Colonel 
Thresher, and I were living; and once more he became an active and 
invaluable helper in all the work that was going forward. He was 
with us again during the battle of Festubert and, on that occasion, I 
being at Advanced G. H. Q., he came up and worked with me for 
several days, describing himself as my "Officier de Liaison " a very 
good name as he and his car were always available to take me or my 
messages anywhere at any time. He felt all the tragedy of that 
unhappy battle as a personal suffering. I remember sitting with him 
in his car at a cross roads close to the line, held up, for the moment, by 
part of a Highland Division that was moving forward to take its part 
in the fighting. The men were young lads, fresh out from home and 



234 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

still full of excitement and gaiety. They marched past us with a fine 
swing, laughing and joking like a lot of hearty schoolboys. I hap- 
pened to look up suddenly toward Bacon. His eyes were full of tears. 
He saw that I had noticed and understood and said simply, " Do you 
know, I can hardly bear to see these lads going forward like this." 
He would have liked to go himself but the sight of all that promise 
going to tiestruction was too much for him. 

Shortly afterward he was obliged, once more, to return to America, 
and for a long time afterward I saw no more of him though he wrote 
now and then and sent me a few reports of speeches by Mr. Root and a 
book by Roosevelt. 

I had now been transferred from the Medical Head Quarters to the 
Gas Directorate where I was working under General Thuillier as his 
Staff Officer for Anti-Gas Defence. It was in this capacity that I 
next met Bacon. Some time toward the end of 1916 I heard that 
he was in Paris. At that phase of the war, the Germans were at- 
tempting to persuade their own soldiers that gas warfare had been 
started by the British and I had by me some documents captured 
from the enemy and reports of agents proving that this charge was 
being made. I therefore suggested to General Charteris, the Di- 
rector of Military Intelligence, that it would be a good thing to invite 
Robert Bacon to G. H. Q. so that he might see these papers and, as 
a neutral, be able to give the lie to the charges made, since he had been 
with us at Head Quarters at the time of the first gas attacks and 
knew all the facts. General Charteris agreed and, as a result, I 
had the great pleasure of his company for a couple of nights and was 
able to take him round some of our gas schools and training centres, 
leaving him at Amiens on his way to Paris. As usual, he was full of 
helpful suggestions and made careful notes of all I had to tell him. 
With the entry of America into the war, a new field of efTort arose 
for one who was by nature a soldier, and when I next saw Robert 
Bacon, he was as happy as a boy, at last in uniform and taking an 
important part, as an '' Officier de Liaison'' on the Staff of Sir Douglas 
Haig, in the war which he had always regarded as a crusade. It 
is not necessary for me to write about his doings from this time for- 
ward as these are part of the history of the war. As a matter of 
fact, I saw very little of him at that time, as he was no longer able 
to afford time to interest himself in the work of our Medical Depart- 
ment and I, too, was very busy at a new phase of work, the or- 
ganization of the Army laboratories in France. But we met now 
and then when his duties took him to Abbeville or mine took me to 
Montreuil, and he was always the same kind and understanding 
friend. 

I saw him for the last time on the day when, his duties in France 



THE FIRST YEARS OF THE WAR 235 

finally over, he was passing through Paris on his way home to America. 
I thinkit was early in March, 191 8. I was in Colonel Richard Strong's 
office at the American Red Cross Head Quarters when he happened 
to come in and we at once arranged to spend the next half hour, all we 
could afford of time, together. He came with me in my car to visit 
one or two shops and offices and then on to the Institute Pasteur 
where I had some business to transact. There we parted with a long 
hand-shake and many hopes that we might meet soon again. 

I cannot close this account of the doings of Robert Bacon as a Red 
Cross officer with the British Expeditionary Force without expressing, 
once more, my love and admiration for the finest human being I have 
ever met. 

S. Lyle Cummins, 
Colonel, Army Medical Service. 

January 2nd, 1921. 



CHAPTER XV 

Plattsburg 

To Mr. Bacon, the immediate duty of the United States upon 
the outbrealc of the war in August, 1914, was to protest against 
the violation of treaties to which Germany was a party, and 
other treaties to which he thought we were also parties. He 
resented President Wilson's appeal to his countrymen, under 
date of August 19th, to "be neutral in fact as well as in name 
during these days that are to try men's souls. "^ 

"There can be no neutrality of the spirit where right and 
wrong are concerned," Mr. Bacon answered, who wanted the 
Government to speak out, and to play its part in the great 
struggle, although President Wilson did not yet realize that the 
country would be involved and forced into the war. 

The case for and against neutrality has never been better 
put than by William Penn in "Some Fruits of Solitude" upon 
which Mr. Bacon nurtured his spirit. 

"Neutrality," said that good and great man, "is something 
else than Indifferency; and yet of kin to it, too. A Judge 
ought to be Indifferent, and yet he cannot be said to be Neutral. 
. . . A wise Neuter joins with neither; but uses both, as his 
honest Interest leads him. A Neuter only has room to be a 
Peace-maker: For being of neither side, he has the Means of 
meditating a Reconciliation of both."- So much in favour of 
neutrality as President Wilson appears to have conceived it. 

"And yet, where Right or Religion gives a Call, a Neuter 
must be a Coward or an Hypocrite. . . . Nor must we 
always be Neutral where our Neighbours are concerned: For 
tho' Meddling is a Fault, Helping is a Duty. We have a Call 
to do good, as often as we have the Power and Occasion." 
This was Mr. Bacon's conception — a conception which im- 
posed a duty. 

^New York Times, August 19, 1914, p. 4. 
''Pages 85-86. 

236 



PLATTSBURG 237 

Mr. Bacon described the immediate duty of the United 
States as he saw it, in a statement to the press on November 4, 
1914, on the eve of his departure for France to help the AlHes: 

Signs are not wanting that the people of this country are unwilling 
to submit much longer to the injunction laid upon them that our 
neutrality should impose upon us silence regarding aspects of the 
European war with which we have a vital concern. There are many 
men who consider that this nation is shirking its duty by maintaining 
a policy which may be interpreted as giving tacit assent to acts in- 
volving us morally and much more intimately than has yet been ex- 
pressed. These men believe that we have a high responsibility in 
upholding the treaties which were signed at the Second Conference 
at The Hague in 1907 and ratified by the United States and the na- 
tions now at war. 

One of the conventions of the Second Hague Conference was the 
Convention respecting the rights and duties of neutral Powers and 
persons in case of war on land. 

Article i of that Convention reads: "The territory of neutral 
Powers is inviolate." 

Article 2 of the same Convention prescribes that " Belligerents are 
forbidden to move troops or convoys of either munitions of war or 
supplies across the territory of a neutral Power." 

It is undeniable and undenied that Belgium, at the beginning of the 
present European war, was a neutral Power and that her neutrality 
was violated by Germany. So much is admitted by Germany's 
official spokesman, the Imperial Chancellor, in his speech in the Reich- 
stag on August 4, who sought to justify the violation — which he spoke 
of as a wrong — on the ground of desperate necessity. 

With the treaties between England, France, and Germany, respect- 
ing Belgium neutrality, we have no diplomatic connection, but in the 
Hague Convention referred to we have a real and intimate concern. 
That Convention was signed by the delegates from the United States 
and ratified by the United States Government, and it was signed and 
ratified by Germany, making it a treaty between Germany and the 
United States, in which the other ratifying Powers were joined. 

In admittedly violating Articles I and II of that Convention, Ger- 
many broke a treaty she had solemnly made and entered into with the 
United States. 

Are we to suffer a nation to break a treaty with us, on whatever 
pretext, without entering, at least, a formal protest? Will any one 
contend that our neutrality imposes silence upon us under such condi- 
tions? Are the Hague conventions to become "scraps of paper" 



238 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

without a single word of protest from this Government? If the 
treaties which we made at The Hague are to be so Hghtly regarded, 
then why not all our other treaties? As a matter of fact, it is our 
solemn duty to protest against a violation of pledges formally entered 
into between this Government and any other Government, and we 
assume a heavy moral responsibility when we remain silent. In this 
crisis, particularly, other nations look to us and never, perhaps, has 
our example had greater force. 

To justify a policy of silence by the assertion that "we are fortunate 
in being safely removed from this danger that threatens European 
Powers" and to urge that as a reason for us to sit still with hands 
folded is as weak as it is unwise.^ 



As far as the records show, Mr. Bacon was the first American 
statesman to advocate publicly this protest. The war had al- 
ready made him a leader. Later, he was joined by others, but 
it is believed that his was the first commanding voice to be 
raised openly demanding of our Government the recognition 
of Belgium's sovereign rights by protesting against the violation 
of those rights." 

After this, the less than five years of life that remained to 
him he spent in urging the United States to prepare for the war 
into which it would inevitably be drawn, in helping the allied 
cause in every way within his power, and in serving in the 



^New York Evening Post, November 4, 1914, p. 16. 

-Neutrality may be of prime necessity in order to preserve our own interests, to main- 
tain peace in so much of the world as is not affected by the war, and to conserve our 
influence for helping toward the re-establishment of general peace when the time comes; 
for if any outside Power is able at such time to be the medium for bringing peace, it is 
more likely to be the United States than any other. But we pay the penalty of this 
action on behalf of peace for ourselves, and possibly for others in the future, by for- 
feiting our right to do anything on behalf of peace for the Belgians in the present. 
We can maintain our neutrality only by refusal to do anything to aid unoffending weak 
powers which are dragged into the gulf of bloodshed and misery through no fault of 
their own. Of course it would be folly to jump into the gulf ourselves to no good pur- 
pose; and very probably nothing that we could have done would have helped Belgium. 
We have not the smallest responsibility for what has befallen her, and I am sure that 
the sympathy of this country for the suffering of the men, women, and children of 
Belgium is very real. Nevertheless, this sympathy is compatible with full acknowl- 
edgment of the unwisdom of our uttering a single word of official protest unless we are 
prepared to make that protest effective; and only the clearest and most urgent National 
duty would ever justify us in deviating from our rule of neutrality and non-interference. 
(Theodore Roosevelt, "The World War: Its Tragedies and Its Lessons," in The Out- 
look, September 23, 1914, pp. 169, 173.) 



PLATTSBURG 239 

Army of the United States in France, when we at last found our- 
selves and entered that war. 

Mr. Bacon was the most modest of men. He carried his 
modesty to the verge of self-suppression. Although he always 
minimized the importance of the part he played in the cam- 
paign for national preparedness, his role in the movement was 
very great. He brought to it the weight accorded the opinion 
of a successful business man, the prestige of a former Secretary 
of State, and an Ambassador to France. Devotion to America, 
American principles, the preservation of the nation and the 
national spirit caused him to shoulder a rifle at a training camp, 
teaching patriotism by example. And what to him was an 
infinitely more difficult thing to do, he mounted the platform 
that he might by word of mouth rouse his countrymen to the 
impending danger which he foresaw. "Where there is no 
vision," he was never tired of saying, "the people perish." 
And he made it the serious business of his life that the American 
people should not perish. 

It is too much to claim that Mr. Bacon originated this 
movement. It would be invidious to insist that he led it. 
But it was he who more clearly and persistently than any other 
in the early days of the European war sounded the note of 
alarm. In modern fashion he played the role of one of his 
heroes, Paul Revere. In season, and out of season, through 
interviews with the Press, speeches from the platform, as 
member and officer of societies of national defense and as 
candidate for the nomination of United States Senator from 
the State of New York, he steadfastly and heroically carried 
the warning throughout the nation. 

In an interview published in the New York Times^ August 
12, 1915, while attending the military training camp at Platts- 
burg, Mr. Bacon expressed very simply his own attitude. He 
said: 

I have not talked for publication since last November, and I am 
here as a protest, if you wish to call it such, against the state of un- 
preparedness in this country. I hope that the idea embodied in this 
camp will make a striking impression on the country. I fear that the 
idea of unpreparedness has not struck home yet as it should, or else I 
think we would have had some needed legislation. 

Lord Roberts time and again warned England of her unprepared- 



240 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

ness and just before he died he said: "The day has come." I have 
been in Europe for about a year and have learned how Europe looks on 
the United States. I do not believe in waiting for trouble. We 
should take a stand. By this I do not mean to go to war or join with 
the Allies. We couldn't, but we should take some position since 
neutrality is impossible. We cannot accept the assurances of nations 
whose own people say they will not be bound by any treaties if 
emergencies of war arise. ^ 

Two months later Mr. Bacon took advantage of the American 
loan to the Allies to make a statement which was published in 
the New York Times'^ and other papers on October 3, 191 5: 
"This loan affords every American citizen ... the op- 
portunity to show in a practical way sympathy for England 
and France in the fight which they are making for truth and 
democracy. It enables every man and woman to enroll himself 
or herself on the side of the right." "This call," he continued, 
"should go 'through every Middlesex village and farm' in such 
a manner that the response will be the response of the nation. 
We cannot fully appreciate what such an answer will mean 
to our friends in their hour of trial, what it will mean to them 
morally, and the encouragement it will give to them as they 
continue the struggle for ideals which have been our own ever 
since we became a nation." 

It is easy to see that Mr. Bacon's heart was enlisted in the 
call. There was nothing lukewarm or cold in his makeup. 
When he stood for the right, he stood for it body and soul; 
when he denounced wrong, he denounced it body and soul; and 
when he spoke of sacrifice and the service of others, his face 
flushed and his voice choked with emotion. A loan to the 
Allies was not merely a matter of dollars and cents; it was a 
message of sympathy as well. He recalled the early days in 
the history of our country, when the people of France heard 
our call, sent sympathy, and made the great sacrifice. He re- 
called Yorktown and all that Yorktown represented: 

We shall soon celebrate the anniversary of Yorktown. It is well to 
reflect now upon all that we fought for and won there for the world, 
for our brothers of England no less than for our own country which 

iNew York Times, August 12, 191 5, p. 5. 
'P. 2. 



PLATTSBURG 241 

had revolted from the despotisms of Kings. That was another world 
crisis, and we won only through the aid of Frenchmen — Rochambeau, 
Lafayette, de Grasse — and with French treasure. These men came to 
us in our struggle through no motive of ambition or adventure, but 
because they cherished the ideals of liberty. France loaned us money 
even when the loan threatened to strain her credit, sending us her mil- 
lions without thought of repayment. 

Mr. Bacon then expressed the idea with him ever present, 
that our future, like that of the Allied nations then in the 
throes of war, depended upon the outcome. "We still ap- 
parently fail," he said, "to grasp the fact that we must bear 
our share in the world's suffering and sacrifice. We do not, as 
a nation, realize that on the outcome of this war will depend 
whether we, too, must substitute new standards of conduct 
for those which we have inherited through the years; that we 
must give up everything we now stand for in the name of 
liberty." 

Mr. Bacon shuddered at the sacrifices, suffered with the suf- 
fering, but never doubted that in the end "right would make 
might." Materialism could not be beaten by more material- 
ism; it could only be overcome by the power of the spirit. 
France, especially, had found its soul, and we must find ours. 
In one paragraph he states the problem, in another he shows 
the solution, and in a third he points the moral. 

First the problem: 

Men questioned at the beginning of this war what France and 
England and Russia could oppose to that scientific, mechanical, intel- 
lectual military organization which had been developed to a higher 
degree of efficiency than any other power of the kind the world had 
known. It was appreciated that this monstrous thing could not be 
met and defeated with its own weapons; that there must be some- 
thing bigger and higher which could only come from the spirit of the 
nations. There was a question in the minds of men whether the na- 
tional soul of France had endured. 

Next the response: 

The answer came promptly. This scientific, soulless war machine 
[is] already defeated in its aims and ambitions. In spite of the super- 
ficial appearance of degenerated standards and ideals, the soul of the 
French nation had been growing steadily stronger and greater through 



242 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

the decades and France was saved not so much by her arms or the 
numbers of her men as by the spirit of her people. 

And finally he takes his stand against President Wilson's 
conception of neutrality, which he thought wrong: 

I believe that long ago we should have planted ourselves squarely 
and unequivocally on the side of the right. We have been hedged 
about by many technicalities which have made our people hesitate to 
show their sympathy in a practical way for the nations which are fight- 
ing our battle. 

By force of circumstances, by our isolation in the past, and by our 
later abnormal growth and prosperity we may appear to the world to 
have degenerated in our moral fibre, but the ideals of our country are 
always the same if only the truth can be brought home to the national 
consciousness. 

Mr. Bacon made a distinction between "official" neutrality 
and "spiritual" or "personal" neutrality. He always pro- 
claimed that he was not neutral in spirit or thought or sym- 
pathy, and he never considered opposition to the President's 
order of "official " neutrality as violated by the expression of his 
views on the spiritual and moral questions which he felt to be 
involved in the war. He did not regard a protest to Germany 
in regard to Belgium as inconsistent with official neutrality, 
but rather as upholding it. 

It is impossible to measure the influence which this interview 
had on the American public. That it brought comfort to 
Englishmen at the front is evident from a passage in a letter 
under date of October 23, 191 5, from an English officer with 
whom Mr. Bacon had served for a time in the British Medical 
Corps :^ 

It was a great pleasure to read your cutting from the N. Y. Times 
of the 3rd and to pass it round the mess. You can imagine "O'D." 
picking it up and reading the imposing headline "Bacon Champions 

Loan" — with his "Well, I'm , so that's what my Liaison Officer 

is up to!"- and "Jim" with his rather bilious view of America cheering 

*Col. S. Lyle Cummins to Mr. Bacon. 

^In a letter of December, 25, 1916, to Mr. Bacon Colonel Cummins gives a subsequent 
detail and remark of Major General Sir Thomas O'Donnell, 

"I have not heard from Genl. O'D for a long time but when last I had a letter he 
abused Mesopotamia roundly and said that 'the Garden of Eden' was overrated. 
But he added that it was probably better when Eve was about!" 



PLATTSBURG 243 

up visibly on reading your remarks. Of course we all knew what 
"Bacon" was up to and how much we owe to you for what you're 
doing, and it was very jolly to picture you standing up and saying it 
all; it's so easy to visualize and hear, instead of merely reading a 
speech when one knows the man who made it. 

There was the reference to de Grasse, Lafayette, and Rochambeau 
which made the speech all the better to pass round the table. 
I think that was the passage I liked best; America that had the spirit of 
liberty too strong in her to accept despotism from her own flesh and 
blood has a big German population that ought to, and I believe will, 
show the same power of ignoring racial origins when it is a question of 
right against wrong. 

A month later he returned to the charge, in an interview in 
the New York Sun of November 5th, on the eve of his departure 
for Europe, for in these trying years Mr. Bacon made many 
a hurried trip to Europe, helping the cause which we all know 
now was our cause from the first shot fired: 

The various activities which have been formed for national service 
of all kings, especially preparedness, I believe to be of great use, and 
I am impressed with the importance at this time of coordinating all 
the efforts that are being made to awaken the national consciousness. 

If this nation is to endure as one of the respected members of the 
society of nations and is to become one of the leaders of international 
opinion, there must be a national realization of our international 
obligations, of the honourable obligations of international conduct. 
Such a conviction can come only from a national soul free from the 
domination of selfish material interests. A large aggregation of people 
with varying and conflicting ideals, lacking cohesion, does not con- 
stitute a nation. It is essential that the people should have common 
impulses, common ideals.^ 

Hitherto Mr, Bacon spoke in general terms. His meaning 
was clear. He did not go into details. He had been time and 
again in Europe; he had been at the battle-front; he had driven 
an automobile at the Marne — "five glorious days bringing in 
wounded" — and he knew what the war was; he knew what it 
meant and he did not need to be told what it was all about. 
From the other side, and just before starting home, he gave, 

^New York Sun, November 5, 191 5, p. 4. Published in part in the New York Times, 
November 5, 191 5, p. 22. 



244 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

in London, an interview to the New York Times correspondent, 
which was cabled to the United States and published in the 
Times of December 19, 191 5: 

It may be taken for an accepted fact that the Allies will not give 
up this struggle without crushing insolent Prussianism. The whole 
spirit of the English and French nations is admirable. It is the spirit 
that means victory in the end no matter how far off it may be. . . . 
The Allies are now getting so much equipment, men, and munitions 
that not the remotest chance exists of their being compelled to give 
up the struggle until their aim is accomplished. But the whole world 
is concerned in this fight and not merely the Allies. The whole world 
is menaced by the domineering Prussianism that none ever dreamed 
existed. Germany has thrown off the mask that hid her baneful 
hypocrisy for so long and stands before the world as menace to very 
liberty itself.^ 

The New York Times correspondent had evidently asked 
"if America must come into war, if necessary, to crush this 
despotic militarism." To this Mr. Bacon replied that "the 
whole world must combine to isolate Prussianism, whether it 
is done by force of arms or other means." The correspondent 
had also apparently asked Mr. Bacon's opinion of President 
Wilson's policy. Mr. Bacon remembered that he was in a 
foreign country, and finely answered: "What I have to say 
about the Government's policy in this war I will say at home." 
And he did. Of the many addresses, the one he delivered on 
March 4, 1916, in St. Louis, at the Convention of the National 
Security League, may be taken as a sample: 

No international policy which is not based on a respect for the law 
of nations can possibly endure. . . . Responsibility for the en- 
forcement of these rules must rest, not with any one nation, but with 
each and all. 

Mr. Bacon followed this statement with an analysis of con- 
ditions and consequences: 

In the conduct of this world war there has been such repeated and 
open disregard of the principles which civilization had agreed should 

^New York Times, December 19, 191 5, p. 5. 



PLATTSBURG 245 

govern the relations of peoples that disappointed statesmen, particu- 
larly statesmen of Europe, have been heard to say that international 
law has ceased to exist. It is, perhaps, only natural that an apparent 
triumph of force in defiance of the rights of others should shake faith 
in the power of law to control the conduct of nations, but I firmly be- 
lieve that, when this war is over, international law will make a greater 
advance than it has ever made before in its short history, and that 
not only will its recognition become general, but that nations will rely 
upon it as the only sure foundation upon which their permanent rela- 
tions can rest. If this be not so, then the world will have passed into 
a state of chaos where no man dare look upon the future, for we have 
either to depend upon the rule of law to regulate our international 
conduct and secure our international rights, or submit to the rule of 
might which shall leave the weaker nations at the mercy of the needs 
and desires of the more powerful. There is no middle course. In the 
critical situation which civilization is now called upon to face there 
can be no compromise. 

Under these conditions Mr. Bacon felt that the nations would 
be justified in taking collective military action if necessary. 
He did not, however, underrate the compelling power of public 
opinion. "Against an attempt to dominate the earth by force, 
there can be opposed but one greater power," he said, "the 
supreme power of collective international opinion, which shall 
ostracize the nation that would hold itself outside the law." 
America had lost the opportunity to take a firm stand at 
the beginning of the war and "to express the collective opinion 
of the nations regarding the sanctity of international law and 
to place ourselves unequivocally on the side of the right." 
He expressed the consequence of our inaction: "Indifference 
to one's rights or a timidity in defending them invites a dis- 
regard on the part of others. Violation has followed violation 
in appalling succession. . . ." Mr. Bacon felt that the 
isolation of geographical situation no longer existed. "With 
the annexation of Hawaii, and with the addition of territory 
after the war with Spain, we found our boundaries suddenly 
extended, so that the insular character of our country was gone. 
The progress of science has destroyed for ever the security 
supposedly afforded by two oceans." 

This change of conditions would justify a change of policy 
adopted with reference to facts and conditions no longer exist- 
ing: 



246 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

The policy of our fathers to refrain from entangling European al- 
liances was unquestionably wise, but the world has lately grown very 
small, and the nations have been brought very near to each other and 
have become, to a great extent, interdependent. We have been 
forced by the inevitable progress of affairs into the society of nations, 
and we cannot escape our duties and our obligations. 

Mr. Bacon comes now to the heart of the problem, appealing 
to the highest qualities of mind and soul of those whom he 
would reach and persuade: 

But this country will never assume its rightful place in the society 
of nations until the natiorial consciousness has been aroused. In 
order to be a leader in international opinion, it is necessary that we 
have a truly national opinion, which shall realize and respect the 
honourable obligations of international conduct. Such an opinion 
can spring only from a national soul freed from the domination of self- 
ish, material interests. The ringing statement of Senator Lodge that 
American lives are worth more than American dollars is splendid. 
Let us go further now and assert that worth more even than American 
lives are American ideals and American honour. 



He was not unmindful that many looked upon the presence 
of foreigners among us as a danger and a menace. "Has the 
influence of large numbers among us who have not been as- 
similated into the national life, grown so great that we no 
longer have an American spirit? ... I, for one, believe in 
the National Soul; I believe that there is an American spirit, 
that there will be an American opinion, which will manifest 
itself in no weak, inactive, negative, neutral way, when once 
the public consciousness is aroused." 

Mr. Bacon was not deceived; he saw facts as they were, and 
he felt, as a man of spirit, the spirit in others, and that it was 
already taking visible form and shape: 

There is something new astir throughout the nation. It is the 
awakening of the public consciousness. . . . 

The nation is responding. Public opinion, for which we have 
waited so long, is beginning to express itself in no uncertain terms. 
There is an awakening throughout the land. The call for Americans 
to save America is sounding from house to house and from city 



PLATTSBURG 247 

to city like that call which "on the i8th of April in '75" spread 
" through every Middlesex village and farm," and I believe the answer 
will be as strong and clear as it was then, and that our men and women 
will prepare themselves for "national service" 

Longfellow's stirring lines oi Paul Revere' s Ride he constantly 
quoted in the distressing years of our neutrality, and he would 
doubtless have been pleased to be called an "alarmist" in the 
sense of Paul Revere. 

It is one thing to preach preparedness; it is often quite a 
different thing to practise it. Mr. Bacon did both and more. 
He urged it from the platform, he trained at Plattsburg, he 
served in France. 

At the outbreak of the World War, and indeed before it, 
far-seeing Americans felt that we might be drawn into it, and 
they urged that steps be taken to prepare for that contingency. 
The navy was imposing, the officers, trained in the Naval 
Academy, were efficient and experienced. The case was dif- 
ferent with the army. It was small and not much beyond the 
proportions of a police force. Its officers were indeed excellent, 
whether they had graduated from the Military Academy or 
had entered the service from civil life, they had mastered the 
requirements of their profession. But in numbers they were 
barely sufficient for a small army — for a great one such as might 
be needed in case of modern war on a large scale and participat- 
ing in the World War, they could not be said to form a suf- 
ficient nucleus around which to build. It was no easy matter 
to train the enlisted men of the army; it was difficult and time- 
consuming to train officers. 

Major-General Leonard Wood was an outspoken advocate 
of military preparedness and of training camps. "The stu- 
dents' military training camps," he has recently said,^ "were 
small affairs during the first two years, 1913 and 1914, and at- 
tracted comparatively little attention. The movement was 
hardly under way before interest began to develop very rapidly 
in the universities, in some of the technical schools, and in the 
high schools. From these it spread to the thousands of alumni 



^"Robert Bacon and Preparedness," The Harvard Graduates' Magazine, vol. 28 
(September, 1919), pp. 82-85. 



l4 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

scattered throughout the country, eventually permeating the 
entire people." 

We are so accustomed to think of the Plattsburg Camp of 
191 5 as the first of its kind, that we forget that camps had pre- 
viously been held at Gettysburg, Monterey, Fort Ethan Allen, 
and a few other places, "where," again to quote General Wood, 
"the seeds of the nation-wide preparedness movement were 
first sown." 

The Plattsburg Camp appealed to the imagination of the 
American people. It was the largest and most imposing; its 
recruits were drawn from the best of the nation, whose support 
would give respectability to any cause. The arrangements 
for the summer of 191 5 extended throughout the previous 
winter, and, as was to be expected, "Robert Bacon was," as 
General Wood says, "one of the strong and dominant influences 
in bringing large numbers of the most desirable type of men into 
the camps for training. His standing and example were far- 
reaching influences in turning public attention to the camps. 
He enlisted as a private and went through the various grades 
and eventually, in the following summer, gained an officer's 
commission. His sons and hundreds of his friends followed 
him into the training camps." 

It would be invidious for a layman to single out a few from 
the many, but General Wood is not a layman, and speaks with 
an authority possessed by none other when he says: 

With Mr. Bacon were other men of his type— for example, George 
Wharton Pepper,^ H. L. Stimson,^ John Purroy MitcheP— types of 
the best of our people. 

Mr. Bacon's interest was not centred in any one camp. It 
extended to the movement, and all camps formed to train 
men for an emergency which he felt and indeed knew to be near 
at hand. "He was especially active," General Wood testifies, 
"in the winter of 1915-16, and took a very prominent part in 



iThen a leading lawyer of Philadelphia and now (1922) United States Senator from 
Pennsylvania. 

^Secretary of War in President Taft's administration, Colonel in the American 
Expeditionary Forces. 

3The Mayor of New York City. 



PLATTSBURG 



249 



the training camps of the latter year. He was one of the po- 
tent forces in bringing to the camp some thousands of business 
men and men from various walks of life, who had the necessary- 
physical and mental qualifications." 

His standing in the community, his work, the respect which the 
people in general held for him, all served to give great weight to his 
advice and example. His name will go down as the first of our more 
prominent citizens who endorsed the movement by personal participa- 
tion in the camps, and who preached the doctrine of preparedness 
from the house-tops, who saw that our safety lay not in words but in 
deeds; that we must prepare, so that we might be not only willing but 
promptly useful in a world crisis. 

"The soundness of his views," the General further says — and 
who would question it to-day? — "was thoroughly confirmed 
by the developments of the World War", and, "had his ad- 
vice been heeded, the country would have been in a position 
to make its voice heard and its wishes respected as soon as 
they were expressed." 

And General Wood has summed up the statements he has 
made elsewhere and at various times: 

What I want especially to emphasize is his great work in the move- 
ment for preparedness in building up the Plattsburg Camps, out of 
which came a large proportion of the only officers who were available 
when war overtook us.^ 

General Wood has spoken of Mr. George Wharton Pepper as 
a man of Mr. Bacon's type. Mr. Pepper has thus spoken of 
Plattsburg and of Mr. Bacon in connection with it: 

The first day of the Plattsburg Camp in August, 191 5, was a day of 
excited bewilderment for the rookie. I was aware of the presence of 
multitudes of men, but it was only toward nightfall that I even began 
to individualize them. ... At sunset there came a brief pause in 
the day's occupation and I had my chance to scrutinize my new com- 
rades. There were several men in the Company whom I had previ- 
ously known. Them, of course, I noted immediately. But the first 
stranger whom I separated from the crowd was a well-built man of 



^Letter of General Wood to Mrs. Robert Bacon, dated Fort Sheridan, Illinois, 
October 26, 1920. 



250 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

middle age and good height, with clearly cut features, a bronzed skin, 
short, crisp curly hair, kindly eyes, and the easy bearing of a man who 
had touched hfe at many points. "This man," I said to myself, "has 
distinction." I do not now recall the incident of meeting him and ex- 
changing greetings. But my first sight of him left with me a memory- 
picture which I shall always retain. There stands Robert Bacon, 
against the background of his tent, with the sunset glow upon him. 

His previous intelligent and earnest efforts in support of General 
Wood's Campaign for National Preparedness were already well 
known to all of us who had had a part in that movement. He put the 
same spirit into our work in the Camp as had characterized his efforts 
to arouse the country. In the discharge of all military duties he dis- 
played the qualities that mark the soldier . . . Bacon . . . 
helped to inspire his comrades with unity of purpose and zeal for the 
cause. He was awarded the chevrons of a sergeant and was made a 
platoon leader. Nowadays we can talk to generals without trem- 
bling. But in those days and in that camp a platoon leader seemed to 
the rookie like a Marshal of France.^ 

Upon his promotion, Mr. Bacon received a letter from his 
friend Ambassador Jusserand, which amused him not a little. 
It was addressed, "Hon. Sergeant Robert Bacon," and began: 

Sept. I, 1915. 
My dear Sergeant, 

First my congratulations on your promotion; you beat most of my 

nephews at the front, who, with one exception, are only corporals. 

But you were ever meant to be the one who did things among the 

rank and file of the Tennis Cabinet of glorious memory. 

Surely Mr. Pepper may be pardoned for speaking of a ser- 
geant in the same breath with a marshal of France when an 
ambassador of France congratulated Mr. Bacon upon his 
sergeancy. 

In a letter to Mrs. Bacon of September 2, 191 5, Mr. Bacon 
gives a glimpse of camp life 

Y. M. C. A. TENT 

Camp of Instruction 
of Regular Troops 

Plattsburg, N. Y. Thursday. 

Well ... we are breaking camp early to-morrow morning and 
are starting on an 8 days hike through the country toward the Adiron- 

^Mr. Pepper to Mr. Scott, April 12, 1921. 



PLATTSBURG 251 

dacks. I am still pegging along and am now the oldest man left, as the 
other old "has beens" have dropped out. Bob has made his lieuten- 
ancy and I am much pleased. I have been given command of a pla- 
toon which is the same work as Bob has although I am but a sergeant. 
Two platoons in each company are commanded by lieutenants and 
two by sergeants. I was killed in the engagement of yesterday . . . 

I am looking forward to the "hike." I need not take my rifle being 
platoon leader but I think I will do so all [the] same. . . . 

I expect to leave here not later than Monday the 6th. . . . 

Mr. Bacon did like all the rest, and did it well. So well, 
indeed, that Captain McCoy, then on the Mexican border and 
destined soon to be with Mr. Bacon in France, sent him a line 
under date of September 20, 191 5, "to give you the Httle praise 
that is so precious to a soldier. My young cousin, Frank 
Ross, was one of the lieutenant instructors and in writing 
me at length of the camps says, ' Mr. Bacon was the outstand- 
ing soldier of the lot.' " 

The spirit in which he performed the duties that came to 
him from day to day is illustrated by an amusing incident 
which General Wood thus relates: 

One day at Plattsburg I saw a rather small regular soldier strug- 
gling along with a heavy locker. He saw Bacon coming his way, and 
called out, "Come over here, you look like a husky fellow, give me a 
hand." Bacon went over, shouldered the locker and carried it over 
to the man's camp. 

A First Sergeant of Regulars, who happened to know who Bacon 
was, called the soldier over and asked him whether he knew who had 
been helping him. The soldier had nc idea who he was. "Well," 
said the Sergeant, "he used to be Ambassador to France." This 
meant nothing to the soldier. The Sergeant, desiring to be very 
impressive, said, "He used to be Secretary of State when Mr. Roose- 
velt was President and was the head man of the Cabinet." The 
soldier, knowing nothing of these things, said: "Well, I don't know 
who he is; I just know that he is a damn good fellow."^ 

But Plattsburg was "merely an incident," as Mr. Pepper 
says, "in the life of this patriot, albeit an important incident. 
It was an opportunity to testify silently to his convictions. 
He grasped the opportunity and held it in a manly grip. 

^General Wood to Mrs. Bacon, October 26, 1920. 



252 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

There are many of us whose affectionate regard for him was 
born there on the shores of Lake Champlain. That regard 
outhves the period of Robert Bacon's enlistment for earthly- 
service. We are proud to have such a friend among the Im- 
mortals."^ 

Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Johnston joins Mr. Bacon and 
Mr. Pepper in his reminiscences of Plattsburg, and, after re- 
counting that he met Mr. Bacon for the first time there when 
he "modestly enrolled himself as a private and assumed his 
duties in the most unobtrusive manner," goes on to say that 
"by reason of his soldierly conduct and appearance, he was 
made Sergeant and then Colour Sergeant, of his battalion, 
which honour he shared with George Wharton Pepper of Phila- 
delphia." 

On the march the colours were kept in a tent occupied by Captain 
Dorey and myself, and one of my most vivid impressions of the Camp 
is of these Colour Sergeants coming for the colours at "first call." 
They laid their hats on the ground outside and apologized profusely 
for disturbing two very junior army officers. 

The colours unfurled to the exact note of the bugle each morning, 
absolutely without fail. I do not believe the colours of the United 
States were ever carried by any finer specimens of American manhood. 

Colonel Johnston met Mr. Bacon alittle later in another camp : 

My next contact with Colonel Bacon was at Fort Oglethorpe Train- 
ing Camp in Georgia. 

We had had a rather hard time organizing this camp and appealed 
to Robert Bacon for assistance. When it became known throughout 
the South that a former Ambassador and cabinet officer was coming 
to serve as a private in this camp, it had the most marvellous eff"ect. 
He did come and entered upon his duty as a private in the same 
whole-hearted manner as at Plattsburg. He was an inspiration and 
a splendid example to all the men who attended this camp, and his 
influence on them is a permanent and lasting one.^ 



'Mr. Pepper to Mr. Scott, April 12, 1921. 

"Colonel Johnston to Mrs. Bacon, October 15, 1920. 

Colonel Johnston mentions a further incident in his reminiscences of Mr. Bacon, and 
it is so characteristic that it is added in the note as it relates to a later period: 

"The last time I saw him was near Bar-sur-Aube in France, when by merest acci- 



PLATTSBURG 2^2 

Mr. Bacon made the same impression on officers and men. 
This is finely expressed in an incident which is contained in a 
letter to Mrs. Bacon, written after Mr. Bacon's death by one 
of his own comrades at a training camp: 

In the spring of 191 6 it was my good fortune to be a tent-mate of 
Mr. Bacon at training camp at Chickamauga Park. The contact with 
him for that brief period, unintimate though it was, has served me as 
an inspiration at many needed times since. That I hold his memory 
in the highest esteem is but what thousands do, that that memory in 
the past had been of help to me, and that in the future that same 
gleam of nobility will beckon as brightly for me, is something I want 
you to know, and something I want to thank you for. 

The last time I saw Mr. Bacon he was bearing the colors of the 
Training Regiment, the Flag was streaming before him and the sunset 
gleamed golden on the Flag and on his head. I will always think of 
him as leading — with the colors before him and the sunlight upon 
his head.^ 

That Mr. Bacon would serve in the war was evident to 
others as well as to himself. He could not advocate pre- 
paredness, urge others to go, and stay at home. His ambition 
was to serve in the line, but age and physical condition pre- 
vented its realization. As General Wood says, "When the 
Great War came, he immediately requested active duty. His 
eagerness for active service overseas was almost pathetic. 
He was willing to go in any capacity. He came to me re- 
peatedly [General Wood was then stationed in New York] 
to talk over the situation, and to discuss possible fields of 
activity and means of entry into the service."" Doubtless 
other Americans and not a few foreigners could tell like tales. 

Lord Lee of Fareham is one of these; but Mr. Bacon's appli- 
cation made to him as Colonel Lee, was in the days of American 



dent I heard there had been a smash-up on the road and drove hurriedly to the point. 
My surprise and grief at finding Colonel Bacon rather badly damaged at the side of 
the road was very great. He was severely bruised on the face and head and terribly 
shaken up, but greeted me with the same very cheerful smile and in spite of all re- 
monstrance refused to be diverted for very much-needed attention to himself until 
he had discharged his miscion at Chaumont." 

^Mr. Edward Clarkson to Mrs. Bacon, in a letter dated "Habana, June 21, 1919." 

^Harvard Graduates* Magazine, vol. 28 (191 9, September), pp. 82, 84. 



254 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

neutrality, in the form of a telegram from Paris under date of 
December 28, 1914: 

If you would be willing to accept me as an orderly in some of your 
work should consider it great privilege to do anything to be of service — 
secretary running errands or driving a car — truly believe could be 
useful and would be more pleased and grateful than can express if you 
would give me this chance to enlist. 

Mr. Bacon was associated with Colonel Roosevelt in the 
project of raising and equipping four divisions of picked men 
with regular officers in the higher commands, which Congress 
later authorized the President to accept in the Selective Service 
Act of May 21, 191 7. President Wilson declined to avail 
himself of this authorization. 

Fearing that this might be so. Colonel Roosevelt had al- 
ready advised Mr. Bacon to go ahead on his own account, 
saying, in a letter of July 7, 191 6: 

Dear Bob, 

On thinking it over it seems to me that you had better file your 
request to raise a regiment with the Secretary of War. If war came, 
I would certainly wish you in my division; but it would not be possible 
to say in advance in just what position I could use you; and moreover 
the Administration would be apt to try either not to employ me at the 
front or not to give me a free hand. . . . 

Always yours, 
Theodore Roosevelt. 

The regiment was not raised.^ Mr. Bacon had, however, 
taken steps to equip a regiment or division, if raised, and or- 

iQn August 30, 191 5, from The Army and Navy Club, Washington, a former Major 
of the United States Army wrote Mr. Bacon a letter, from which a few extracts are 
quoted, as having more than a passing interest. 

"One of America's ambassadors who had passed many years in the capitals of 
Europe, once said to me in speaking of our unprepared condition: 'Some day we will 
get a slap in the face that we will be unable to resent.' 

"After I had seen for myself the great military machine in Europe that he had 
become familiar with, I was more than ever impressed by that remark. 

"America has been asleep, as we all know quite well, and this movement at Platts- 
burg is about the first indication of its awakening. . . 

"When I started target practice, years ago, at one of our largest universities where 
I commanded some 800 cadets, I found few who could hit 'the side of a barn.' The 



PLATTSBURG 255 

dered a number of Lewis guns. He took them when they were 
ready, and they were put to good use in Plattsburg and other 
training camps. Part of the story is told in the following 
letter of July 31, 19 17, from Lieutenant Colonel Paul A. 
Wolf, Commanding Plattsburg Barracks, written to "Major" 
Bacon, then in France: 

I cannot express to you too strongly my appreciation of your action 
in loaning the 8 Lewis machine guns to us for instructional purposes. 
This war has developed into a war of machine guns and heavy artillery 
and it seems a strange turn of fate that in preparing these young men 
to be officers in the national army it will be impossible for us to give 
them the proper machine gun and heavy artillery instruction. 

By great good luck, we were able to get the First New York Field 
Artillery here so we can use their material and through your kindness 
we were able to get these 8 Lewis guns for a short period of instruction. 
Of course we should like to have used them for the entire camp, but 
realize other camps have equal claim on them. 

The rest of the story is quickly told; the guns were used and 
were rendered unserviceable until certain replacements of worn 
parts had been made. Money could not be procured from the 
Government for this purpose, they were therefore repaired at 
Mr. Bacon's expense. They were further used, and among 
others, by Mr. Bacon's son. Captain Elliot C. Bacon, at Camp 
Upton, of the 77th Division, before his command sailed for 
France. 



practice was at that time voluntary, of necessity, but the lads soon became enthusias- 
tic about it as a sport. 

"The object of this letter is to suggest that the men of your regiment get together 
before disbandment and form a rifle club, the object of which shall be to excite in- 
terest throughout the country in rifle practice. . . . 

"If we should at any time be suddenly forced into war, as Europe was last year, 
it would be pitifully late to begin to teach our volunteers how to use effectively the 
arms issued to them. The conditions are not now such as obtained at Lexington, 
but one would judge from articles one sees in print that most of our fellow country- 
men actually believe that all we need do to insure the welfare of the nation in case 
of war, is to call out a million or so of untrained men and put arms in their hands — 
and yet we claim to be an intelligent nation. . . ." 

Very truly yours, 

W. P. Van Ness. 

(Major U. S. A., Retired) 



CHAPTER XVI 

Candidacy for the Senate 

Thus far Mr. Bacon had urged preparedness in his individual 
capacity. Wherever he went he spoke of it, and made con- 
verts. He felt that much more should be done, by others if 
possible, by himself if nobody "worthier" could be found. 

Mr. Bacon had worked through the National Security 
League, of which he was the president. Of Mr. Bacon's con- 
nection with this great and influential body, organized to pre- 
pare America for the war while there was yet time, Mr. S. 
Stan wood Menken, its organizer, writes: 

He gave a good deal of money toward building up the organization, 
and considerable time, much of which was devoted to conferences . . . 
as to different steps we should take. He was indefatigable, these 
conferences taking place at all hours of the day and night and under 
conditions which greatly varied. 

Mr. Bacon had one hobby and that was the unification of all societies 
devoted to preparedness. ... He travelled about the country, 
going to Chicago, St. Louis, etc. . . . While he was doing this 
work he was also helping the Universal Training League.^ 

Public meetings are always a source of anxiety until they 
are over, and sometimes even then accidents happen that are 
tragic for the moment. Mr. Menken recounts one of which 
Mr. Bacon was the unfortunate hero — or victim. 



Among the many painful incidents of his work, there was one 
amusing^one which I recall. It was connected with the holding by 
the National Security League of two important meetings simultane- 
ously — one in Carnegie Hall and the other at the New Theatre of this 
city. Mr. Bacon assumed the responsibility for the Carnegie meet- 
ing, at which Mr. Choate spoke and at which meeting there was 

iMr. Menken to Mr. Scott in a letter dated New York, April 29, 1920. 

256 



CANDIDACY FOR THE SENATE 257 

booked as one of the chief orators a labour leader representing the 
American Federation of Labour. 

There was a tremendous crowd at both meetings and the pressure of 
pulling them off simultaneously was extreme, inasmuch as we had to 
use certain of the speakers at both halls. Mr. Bacon very graciously 
invited the labour leader and his wife to be Mrs. Bacon's guests in the 
central box. The labour leader's speech was printed as evidence of 
labour's support of preparedness. The speaker waited, but through 
some oversight Mr. Bacon forgot all about him, with the result that 
as the meeting adjourned a bomb exploded and we found that he had 
not been called. I was at his side and undertook to retrieve the situa- 
tion, as far as possible, by reading the speech amid the disappearing 
crowd and fading lights. 

The next day, fortified with my affidavit that I had read the speech 
but having the echo of the labour leader's denouncement that it was 
evident that Mr. Bacon and the National Security League did not 
want the support of organized labour in the preparedness movement, 
Mr. Bacon sent to the headquarters of the American Federation of 
Labour in this city and actually spent five hours, exhausting his 
diplomatic skill in prevailing upon the gentlemen there to accept his 
apology in the varied forms in which he tendered it. I often wonder 
whether history will ever record the obligation of America to men such 
as Augustus P. Gardiner,^ Joseph H. Choate, Theodore Roosevelt, and 
Robert Bacon, who made possible our efforts for preparedness not- 
withstanding the lack of leadership of our chief executive and legisla- 
tors in Washington. . . ? 

These men were all Republicans; the tribute to them is from 
a political opponent, for Mr. Menken is a Democrat. 

In the summer of 1916 Mr. Bacon visited the troops in camp 
on the Mexican border because of the disturbed condition in 
that distracted and badly treated country. Two of his sons 
were serving as officers, Robert in the contingent from New 
York; Gasper in that of Massachusetts. Upon his return to 
New York he made a statement to the Press, urging universal 

^Augustus P. Gardiner (1865-1918). Member of Congress from Massachusetts 
(1902-1917), a prominent advocate of preparedness during the period of American 
neutrality. Colonel on Staff; commissioned Major of Infantry. Died of pneumonia 
at Camp Wheeler, January 14, 191 8. 

-"Some day I should like you to know the fulness of his rich offering on the altar of 
service to country as I saw it, and also of the many wondrous things he did to aid the 
Security League, all with a single purpose to do for the Nation." Extract of letter from 
Mr. S. Stanwood Menken to Mrs. Bacon. 



258 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

service. In this he defined in general terms the meaning 
which he attached to preparedness, and incidentally mentioned 
the vast extent of ground he had covered in his advocacy of 
this great cause: 

I am more than ever convinced that there is but one satisfactory 
solution for military preparedness of the nation, in fact, for the main- 
tenance and endurance of the nation itself in a high place in the 
affairs of the world, and this is: Universal service — the spirit of service 
and sacrifice for the nation. Unless we learn to speak in terms of a 
nation, and subordinate our local and material ambitions; unless 
the nation, in claiming its international rights, learns to appreciate 
its duties and international obligations, the nation cannot endure as 
one of the respected members of the society of nations. 

There has been a great change in sentiment and opinion about 
universal service. Everywhere that I have been — in New England, 
the Middle States, the Mississippi Valley, the South, and the great 
Southwest as far as Arizona — I have found but one opinion: that uni- 
versal service for the nation, whether it be enrollment for the military 
or for broader work of industrial efficiency for national purpose, is the 
only democratic principle of national life, and only by such service 
can we obtain justice and equality for all citizens of the great com- 
munity. These are the undoubted facts, which have been emphasized 
by the lessons of this great world war, and which are proved beyond 
a question to the mind of any one who is brought in close contact 
with the army now encamped along our border, both regulars and 
militia.^ 

No one appeared to be willing to go before the people of 
New York on a platform which approved the stand of the 
Allies, which bespoke for them moral and material support; 
which insisted upon preparedness for the time, when near at 
hand, as Mr. Bacon thought, mock neutrality should be flung 
aside and America, radiant and soul redeemed, should send its 
young manhood to save the Old World which had discovered 
the New. Therefore Mr. Bacon announced his candidacy 
on August 23, 1 91 6, for nomination as United States Senator 
from New York at the approaching primaries. He felt that 
the Honourable William M. Calder, then a member of the 
House of Representatives and candidate for the Senatorship, 

iThe New York Times, July 29, 1916, p. 3. 



CANDIDACY FOR THE SENATE 259 

did not stand unequivocally for the principles of preparedness, 
and as principles, not the man, were the main thing, Mr. Bacon 
threw his modesty to the winds and "in his humble person" 
— to quote his own words — "appealed to the people of New 
York to approve those principles and to have them carried to 
Washington by a man who so believed in them that he would 
live for them in America and die for them if need be in France." 
The cause was the thing, and nothing should be done that could 
injure it. "I could not become political or seem to do so." 
Therefore, Mr. Bacon resigned the presidency of the League 
in a letter to Mr. Menken.^ 
In resigning Mr. Bacon said: 

During the last year and a half the National Security League has 
conducted successfully a national campaign of education for prepared- 
ness. You, as a Democrat, and I, as a Republican, have been of one 
mind that this issue vitally affects all the people, and we have kept the 
great work of the League free from any thought of partisan political 
bias. 

After stating that he had become a candidate at the Repub- 
lican primaries for the Senatorship and that his candidacy 
might "not be construed as affecting in any way the non- 
partisan character of the league," he offered his resignation, 
which under the circumstances was properly accepted. But 
he was anxious that his severance of official relations should 
not be looked upon as desertion of the cause. "In awakening 
the spirit of sacrifice and service for their country in the souls 
of our citizens, the League has done, and I am sure will con- 
tinue to do, work that is wholly admirable." And with this 
commendation on his lips, he pledged himself anew to the 
great cause. "With that work my sympathy will not be dis- 
missed because I am no longer officially connected with the 
League, and I wish to assure the thousands of members through- 
out the country who are pledged to the cause that I shall always 
consider it a privilege to help in any way I can." 

Mr. Bacon entered the campaign with the thought upper- 
most in his mind of making the issue of preparedness para- 
mount. Indeed, it is not too much to say that such was his 

'Printed in part in the Albany Knickerbocker Press, September ii, 1916, p, i. 



26o ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

sole motive. Mr. Calder had been actively a candidate for 
two years or more and had received pledges of support from 
nearly every influential Republican organization. It was 
therefore a foregone conclusion, with the organized voters 
pledged to Mr. Calder, that Mr. Bacon's nomination was most 
unlikely. Personal victory or defeat was immaterial; his de- 
cision was based solely upon the public good which his can- 
didacy might do in emphasizing the need of national pre- 
paredness for war. 

The fact that he might poll an extremely small vote and 
thereby discredit in the popular mind the cause which he ad- 
vocated made him delay his decision. He sought the advice 
of Mr. Root, Colonel Roosevelt, and other friends, and he re- 
turned from interviews with them in an unsettled frame of 
mind, for, of course, both Mr. Root and Colonel Roosevelt were 
too experienced not to appreciate fully the advantage it gave 
to Mr. Calder to have the party organizations working for him 
in the primary. 

Mr. Calder had been non-committal on the subject of pre- 
paredness and showed, in Mr. Bacon's opinion, such a dis- 
position to avoid or side-step this issue that Mr. Bacon felt it 
his duty to go into the campaign appealing to the unorganized, 
unpledged Republican voters for support. 

His decision was not taken until the last moment. He had 
postponed as long as possible. The primary law requires that 
the petition of a candidate be filed a certain number of weeks 
before primary day. Mr. Bacon waited until there was just 
time to get his petition to Albany, and to file it in the office of 
the Secretary of State. 

There was a dramatic, even amusing, final quarter of an 
hour before he announced his intention. The incident is 
typical of Mr. Bacon's remoteness from the self-interest of the 
practical politician. 

The scene was at Mr. Bacon's home, i Park Avenue, at 
night. Mr. Bacon, Mr. Job E. Hedges, Mr. William Barnes, 
and one or two others had gathered to learn Mr. Bacon's de- 
cision. Mr. Hedges, an eminent lawyer of New York City who 
had himself been Republican candidate for Governor of New 
York, was Mr. Bacon's political adviser. During the cam- 
paign this acquaintance ripened into an intimate friendship, 



CANDIDACY FOR THE SENATE 261 

Mr. Bacon placing complete reliance upon the wise and dis- 
interested advice of his friend. 

Mr. Barnes dominated the Republican political situation 
at Albany. He was a forceful, aggressive, and powerful po- 
litical leader at that time, out of harmony and touch with 
other leaders of the Republican "machine" in the State. 
Almost as soon as Mr. Bacon's name was mentioned as a 
possible candidate Mr. Barnes volunteered his support. This 
was probably the first close personal association in Mr. Bacon's 
experience with one who was generally described as a political 
"boss." It should be stated in this connection that Mr. 
Barnes won Mr. Bacon's admiration not only for the capacity 
which he displayed for organizing in the primary campaign, 
but even more for his constant and faithful adherence to the 
standard of public good, upon which Mr. Bacon had put his 
candidacy. On the evening in question, as the hour grew 
late, Mr. Barnes, facing Mr. Bacon, said: "The time has come 
when we must have your decision. We cannot wait any 
longer," 

It was a moment which Mr. Bacon would gladly have post- 
poned, but he was fully aware that he had already waited too 
long. He looked for a moment at Mr. Hedges, and then said 
quietly to Mr. Barnes: "I shall give you my decision in ten 
minutes, but if you will pardon me saying so, I prefer to make 
my decision when you are not in the room." 

Probably no one more than Mr. Barnes appreciated the 
simplicity, the naive sincerity of such a confession. In mak- 
ing up his mind, Mr. Bacon wanted to be beyond the presence 
of a dominating and strong-willed politician whom he knew 
but slightly and whose advice might be influenced by per- 
sonal motives. Mr. Barnes controlled Mr. Bacon's sole or- 
ganized party support at that time, yet he had no hesitation in 
jeopardizing that help to be sure he was right. Mr. Barnes 
rose, smiled slightly, and said: " I shall go to my house." "And 
I shall telephone you in ten minutes," Mr, Bacon answered. 

Alone with his friend Hedges, the decision was taken, and 
Mr. Barnes learned over the telephone that Mr. Bacon had 
decided to become a candidate. 

Immediately following Mr. Bacon's decision, all appearance 
of procrastination disappeared, and there began at once, 



262 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

under his personal inspiration, the most aggressive, active 
campaign New York had ever known in a senatorial primary. 
Speeches were delivered in many parts of the state, interviews 
were freely granted, all honourable means were taken to spread 
wide the principles for which Mr. Bacon stood. 

He did not avoid issues, but his mind was fixed on one 
thing — the peril to this country spiritually and materially in 
pretending indifference to the great battle for right waged in 
France by the Allies, and in failing to get ready here in order 
to meet the danger which so clearly threatened us. In it 
all Mr. Bacon never wavered. 

It is difficult at this time to appreciate the courage it re- 
quired of a political candidate to speak openly, unreservedly, 
on the questions of loyalty, neutrality, international duty, and 
national preparedness. We now wonder how the people could 
have been of two minds on these matters, but it is only neces- 
sary to recall that a few weeks later President Wilson was re- 
elected on the popular cry, "He kept us out of war," to realize 
the divided opinion of the people in regard to our obligations 
and interests at home and abroad. 

Mr. Joseph H. Choate, full of years and rich in wisdom, 
stood sponsor for Mr. Bacon as the chairman of his com- 
mittee. Mr. Job E. Hedges, whom Mr. Bacon had unsuccess- 
fully urged to make the fight in his stead, offered his services 
as manager of the campaign. Mr. Elihu Root, friend and 
associate, confessed his faith in Mr. Bacon and his candidacy. 
Mr. David Jayne Hill, who had been Ambassador in Berlin 
when Mr. Bacon was Ambassador in Paris, pledged his services, 
and Mr. Roosevelt advised the good people of New York to 
vote for him. They would have chosen him as the Republican 
candidate had Mr. Bacon had a few more days to meet them, 
to lay his programme before them and to justify the cause for 
which he asked their support. As it was, he did not lose a dis- 
trict in which he spoke. 

Mr. Bacon lost, but his cause had won. The people were 
ready to respond to the call of duty and of sacrifice if only the 
voice were clear and the tone sincere. 

What was the platform which Mr, Bacon stated in announc- 
ing his candidacy on August 23rd, and for which more than 
140,000 of his countrymen of the Republican Party in the 



CANDIDACY FOR THE SENATE 263 

State of New York gave their approval on September 19, 1916? 
It was, of course, in accord with the national platform of the 
Republican Party, whose candidate for the Presidency was 
Charles Evans Hughes of New York. 

"The Chicago platform proclaims the formal tenets of our 
party faith. To them, and to the party nominees, we are 
bound in loyalty and effort." This is the sole reference to it 
in Mr. Bacon's statement. His platform was personal, and it 
was a single word — America} 

We are an intensely personal people — America first, America pre- 
pared, America sympathetic with the weak and wrongly oppressed, 
America intrepid and fearless before wrongful encroachment by the 
strong — is the America of my vision and the goal of my efforts. 

This America cannot be wrought alone by law. It requires a na- 
tional spirit, commanding service, imposing sacrifice, ungrudging and 
unrestrained. It demands an Americanism so intense as to fuse race, 
birth, and social condition into a common inspiration and faith, dis- 
loyalty to which is dishonour and disgrace. 

What was the duty of this America, strong and sympathetic, 
fused and indivisible? "In this convulsion of the world we 
have a part to play." W'hat is this part and how shall we pre- 
pare for it ^ Mr. Bacon's answer is that of a Secretary of State, 
of an Ambassador, as well as a patriot: 

In the immediate future and throughout the coming years, we shall 
be confronted with problems for which this nation is wholly unpre- 
pared. The issues which to-day are vital to this nation have not as 
yet received the serious attention nor awakened the serious interest 
of our people. 

For generations, we have lived in isolation and safety, and we are 
only beginning to be conscious of our rights, duties, and dangers as a 
member of the society of nations. 

The rights and duties make up what is international law: the ex- 
pression of the simple rules of conduct which should govern any 
community of individuals. It is necessary that people should know 
these rules. There should be widespread popular knowledge of the 
laws which govern our foreign relations, just as every man knows the 
laws which govern his relations with his neighbour, to whose observ- 

^The Albany Knickerbocker Press, September ii, 1916, p. 3. Printed in part in the 
New York Sun, August 23, 1916, p. 4. 



264 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

ance he is compelled by the very force of public opinion embodied 
in the policeman or the sheriff. No national administration will be 
able thoroughly to interpret the will of the people unless the people 
know the rules which should govern international conduct. It is 
the lack of knowledge of these things which has brought about the 
serious — almost fatal — mistake of our foreign poHcy. 

The trained and instructed will of the people: "This should 
be the touchstone of our foreign policy." But what are these 
rules of conduct which the people should know and which should 
govern international conduct.^ 

We must insist that the large powers shall treat a small nation as 
the United States has treated Cuba and we must aim to establish the 
rule that every nation, like every human being living under the Ameri- 
can Constitution which vitalizes the language of the Declaration of 
Independence, has the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to the 
pursuit of happiness, and that every nation, like every individual in 
America, must be respected and protected in the enjoyment of these 
rights. 

History is, it is said, philosophy teaching by example. Here 
was a foreign policy based upon a concrete example. How was 
this informed will of the people to be specifically applied in the 
convulsion of the world? "First of all, we cannot tolerate, 
without protest, violation of treaties to which we as a nation are 
a party. We should not make treaties, to the letter of which 
we are not prepared to stand." This was a note of caution, 
applicable then, now, always. He illustrates these two princi- 
ples, which are really one with a high-minded people, by the 
case of Belgium: 

The rights of the smaller nations should be as sacred to us as the 
rights of a child among strong men: and to protect these rights in 
words, while refusing to protest them in the concrete, is to work dis- 
aster to our own soul. This is the essence of the law of nations. 

But there are protests and protests. Protests of the pocket- 
book, we have indeed had, but a dearth of protests for the higher 
things. 



CANDIDACY FOR THE SENATE 265 

If there have been violations of our trade rights as neutrals, it is 
our right to protest, it is our duty to protest. A nation sinks low when 
its protests are directed against acts which interfere with commercial 
and material prosperity alone, and when at the same time it fails to 
protect the honour and lives of its citizens and the ideals and princi- 
ples of its civilization. 

The Mexican policy of President Wilson has been doomed to 
failure from the beginning, and the attitude of the United 
States toward South America does not satisfy the peoples of 
those countries, because it is bottomed on dollars and not on 
ideals: 

With the policy — or lack of policy — in regard to Mexico, I have 
totally disagreed for three years. The destruction of life and prop- 
erty, the outrages and anarchy which have resulted were inevitable 
in the eyes of every student of Mexican conditions and history. It 
was inevitable from the moment that the administration, contrary 
to the opinion and advice of other great powers, intervened and pre- 
vented the continuity of government in Mexico without providing the 
moral and physical support which was absolutely necessary if any 
other course were to be followed. 

What of preparedness? Mr. Bacon has saved this subject 
nearest his heart for this last word to the electorate: 

I am convinced that there is only one satisfactory solution of the 
miHtary preparedness of the nation — in fact, for the maintenance of 
the nation itself in a high place in the affairs of the world. This is uni- 
versal service, the spirit of service and sacrifice for the nation. Unless 
we learn to think in terms of a nation, and subordinate our local and 
material ambitions; unless the nation, in claiming its international 
rights, learns to appreciate its duties and international obligations, the 
nation cannot endure. 

To maintain intact and unimpaired the nation, with its rights and 
duties as proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence, with the 
system of government devised by the framers of the Constitution, 
we must adopt the method of the founders. 

I place my faith in the wisdom of the Fathers of this country, as 
expressed in the Act of Congress of May 8, 1792, which imposed 
obligatory military training and service upon the nation; and I believe 
that Congress should immediately reenact the principle of that law 



266 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

which reads as follows: "Every able-bodied male citizen of the respec- 
tive states, resident therein, who is of the age of eighteen years, and 
under the age of forty-five years, shall be enrolled in the Militia." 

I place my faith in the wisdom of Washington, who said that "A free 
people ought not only be armed, but disciplined." 

I place my faith in the wisdom of Jefferson, who said that " the 
country could never be safe until military instruction was made a 
regular part of collegiate instruction, and that every citizen be made a 
soldier." 

This policy is not only right, just, and necessary, but it is in accord- 
ance with the true spirit of democracy and of equality. 

With this kind of a platform It is easy to understand why 
Mr. Root addressed Mr. Joseph H. Choate^ a letter from his 
summer home in Clinton, New York, under date of August 
1 8, 1916, saying in its opening sentences: 

I think you are rendering still another public service in acting upon 
Mr. Robert Bacon's committee for his nomination as United States 
Senator in the Republican primaries. Not only is Mr. Bacon a citizen 
of the highest type, high-minded, generous, and public-spirited, but 
he has special qualifications. He was long Assistant Secretary of 
State, then for a short time Secretary of State, then for a number of 
years Ambassador to France. He filled all of those positions with 
distinction and success. He has both theoretical and practical fami- 
liarity with international history, the foreign policies of the United 
States, and the business of diplomacy. 

He has a wide acquaintance with the public men in the foreign 
offices of other nations and has the knowledge necessary to estimate 
the weight of their words and to forecast their probable actions. He 
has special relations of friendship and personal regard with the leading 
statesmen in all the principal South American countries and has per- 
sonal familiarity with the conditions in those countries and their feel- 
ings toward the United States. His service in the United States 
Senate would be of immense value to Mr. Hughes in the conduct of 
the foreign affairs of the United States. 

Although the Senate is the constitutional adviser of the President 
in regard to foreign affairs, there are comparatively few Senators who 
have really studied the subject or acquired practical familiarity with 

^Joseph H. Choate (1832-1917). Leader of the American Bar and of the New York 
Bar; Ambassador to Great Britain (i 899-1905); Chairman of the American Delegation 
to the Second Hague Peace Conference of 1907. During the last twenty years of his 
life he was in an eminent degree the first citizen of America. 



CANDIDACY FOR THE SENATE 267 

it. Increased strength in that direction is much needed. If the peo- 
ple of the State of New York can put into the Senate a man of the 
highest character who understands the business of foreign affairs they 
will have rendered a very great service to the President who is about 
to be elected and to the people of the United States. They can do 
that by electing Mr. Bacon. 

The letter to Mr. Choate was inclosed in a personal one to 
Mr. Bacon, which speaks for itself and shows the affection of 
the elder for the younger man : 

Dear Bob: 

I got your telegram, and I wish you luck. My guess is that you 
will have a good vote — not a majority, but respectable — and it will 
really introduce you into political life. I think that it is probably no 
injustice to the friends of Hughes* who were anxious not to have a con- 
test to say that they were probably affected by an unconscious desire 
to avoid anything which might shake their control of party ma- 
chinery. . . . 

I am inclosing a letter to Choate as chairman of your committee. 
I have tried to make it so that it will do the most good, not as a gen- 
eral recommendation to be filed with Saint Peter but to state the 
principal irrefutable reason why you should be preferred to Calder 
and put it in brief and pointed form so that it will stand a chance to be 
carried by the newspapers and to be read. If you have any improve- 
ment or change to suggest, send it back and I shall do it over. 

On the same day Mr. David Jayne Hill wrote a warm letter 
of approval, giving even more briefly than that of Mr. Root 
the reasons why New York should be represented in the 
Senate of these United States by Mr. Bacon: 

I have been greatly pleased to learn that you have accepted the 
invitation of your friends to be a candidate for the RepubHcan nomina- 
tion for the United States Senate in the coming primaries. 

Your presence in that body would do honour to the State of New 
York and be of real service to the American people. Your knowledge 
of public affairs, acquired in the course of a large experience in re- 
sponsible office, and especially the results of your intimate acquaint- 
ance with foreign relations should be of immense value to the country 

'Charles Evans Hughes (1862- ). Defeated for the Presidency in 1916, he was 
appointed Secretary of State by President Harding, taking office on March 4, 1921. 



268 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

at a time when our position in the world is as uncertain as it now is 
and confronted by so many delicate international problems which the 
nation will certainly have to solve. 

Permit me, therefore, to express to you my great interest in the 
success of your candidacy, to which I am glad to have the privilege of 
pledging such support as I am able to give. 

A further word of support may be added from the very head 
and front of the Republican Party, the advice of Theodore 
Roosevelt to the voters of New York unfortunately only given 
on the eve of the election:^ 

Mr. Bacon has come out squarely for universal military service, and 
Mr. Calder against it. This raises what I regard as a vital issue of 
principle, an issue which accordingly as it is now decided one way or 
the other may mean within a very few years whether the next gener- 
ation of Americans is to walk with heads held high before the world, 
or with heads bent by crushing disgrace and disaster. I have studi- 
ously refrained from taking any part in the primary campaign, but 
when this issue is raised with such clearness and emphasis, it is im- 
possible for me, holding the convictions I do, not to support Mr. Bacon. 

I suppose that it is too late for my support to be of use to him; but 
when this vital issue is raised in good faith, and is one real issue be- 
tween the two candidates, I am bound by every consideration of 
patriotism and public duty to support Mr. Bacon. This issue relates 
to the most important plank in the platforms of the two candidates, 
and puts them in sharp and thoroughgoing opposition on a matter 
literally vital to the welfare of the Republic. 

Mr. Bacon's platform and the reasons which forced him to 
enter the primaries have been given in considerable detail and 
in the form of extracts from his appeal to the voters, that his 
views may be given in his own language and not blurred by 
paraphrase or summary. A few paragraphs would have sufficed 
if Mr. Bacon's candidacy had been one of persons, not princi- 
ples: if it had not been in a presidential year, and if it had not 
been in New York, which was and is looked upon as a pivotal 
State. The interest in the contest which Mr. Bacon was waging 
was larger than the man; interest in it transcended the State: 
it was national. It was the one election in which a candidate 



^The New York Times, September 19, 1916, p. 6. 




W'^^Mj: 



^i-:.>e^.; 



< 

CQ 



o 




Robert Bacon at Plaiisburg 
In 191 5, when the former Secretary of State became Private Bacon 



CANDIDACY FOR THE SENATE 269 

voiced his sympathy for the Allies, insisted that their cause 
was our cause, that President Wilson's policy of neutrality was a 
policy of indecision and mistake, that the war was at our doors, 
and that we must prepare and that without delay, for the war 
which was thrust upon us and into which we must sooner or 
later enter, not merely to help the Allies, but to preserve 
America and American ideals. 

Mr. Bacon heartened the multitudes in other States of the 
Union who inclined to his views but who had never heard them 
expounded from the platform. Mr. Bacon's example en- 
couraged them to speak out. It showed the politicians that 
there was a strong tendency toward action, instead of inaction, 
as it was clear from the notices of Mr. Bacon's candidacy in 
the press and the editorials after his tremendous vote in the 
primaries (the largest with the exception of Mr. Calder's ever 
given in a primary), that ten days or two weeks more would 
have won him the election. 

The New York Times of September 21, 1916,^ had an editorial 
on the aftermath of the election which put the case clearly and 
drew the moral from the facts. It is headed "The Popular 
Side." It begins by stating that neither the Democratic nor 
the Republican nominee for the Senatorship should "ignore the 
lesson of Robert Bacon's phenomenal run." What Mr. Bacon 
did was a thing which before he accomplished it would have 
been called impossible. After stating that Mr. Calder had been 
a candidate for the nomination in 1914, that failure then only 
spurred him to redoubled effort in the two years intervening, 
that he had control of the organization and would apparently 
receive the nomination by a unanimous vote, the editorial adds 
that "then, only about a week before the time for filing nomina- 
tions expired, Mr. Bacon entered the field . . . Yet this 
last-minute candidate polled an immense vote and nearly 
defeated him; and if the contest had been on even terms there 
is no question that Bacon would have been victorious, as he was 
nearly victorious in spite of Calder's long lead." 

How did it happen? What was the reason? The Times 
answers: "He made that run, he got that vote, he frightened 
the organization nearly out of its wits, simply by letting every- 

ip. 10. 



270 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

body know where he stood, and thus he demonstrated that his 
view of the issues was the popular one. . . 'I am an avowed 
unneutral' declared Bacon at the outset; he repelled the German 
vote where Calder merely did not invite it; he even ran as the 
friend of France . . . The votes against Calder were cast 
for a man who fairly shrieked his sympathy with the Allies, 
his detestation of the man who brought on the war, his belief 
in straightout Americanism as a foreign policy, and who even 
advocated compulsory military service." 

"The moral is," continues the Times ^ "that 'pussyfooting' 
does not pay, that it does not attract votes, that . . . it is 
not only patriotic to repel the hyphen vote and speak out 
flatly for Americanism; it is also profitable in the matter of 
votes." 

One passage from a paper published outside of New York 
may be taken as an example of the effect of Mr. Bacon's plat- 
form and campaign on the States at large. The Baltimore 
Sunday News, of October 8, 1916,^ had an editorial entitled 
"Not Afraid of a Change of Policy," in the course of which it 
said: 

. . . Mr. Bacon was an eleventh-hour candidate for the Senate, 
entering the field against a man who had the backing of the regular 
organization, who had been a candidate before and who had spent the 
past two years building his fences. Mr. Bacon had the additional 
handicap of being a man who was closely allied to "Big Business" and 
against whom prejudice could be easily aroused in those who dislike 
the "silk-stocking" fellow. Nevertheless, his vigorous demand for 
upholding the national honour, his earnest support of universal 
military training, and his emphatic denunciation of the Wilson Ad- 
ministration's course with Germany and Mexico were popular enough 
with the electorate to gain for him a vote that simply astonished 
New York. 

It was not considered possible that a candidate could accomplish 
so much in the short space of a three-weeks campaign. Mr. Calder 
won by a scant margin, which would have disappeared entirely, it 
was generally believed, had the election been held a fortnight later. 

The editorial concluded that "if New York is any criterion 
of public sentiment" it indicated "a change of national policy 

ip. 16. 



CANDIDACY FOR THE SENATE 271 

. . . with no fear . . . that a return to the traditional 
belief that American citizens have rights that should be re- 
spected means war with anybody, unless it is a just war that 
only a craven nation would shirk." 

Opposition to President Wilson's policy of "watchful waiting" 
in Mexico, as it was generally called at the time, and dissatis- 
faction with the failure to put the country on a war footing if 
it should be found essential to American interests to enter the 
war, were bringing the wings of the Republican Party together. 
It was necessary that it should present a united front if the 
Democratic Party was to be beaten. In working together and 
thinking of the things we have in common, differences are often 
overlooked if they are not forgotten. Mr. Bacon felt that the 
success of preparedness required the sacrifice of personal prej- 
udice and indeed of convictions. He therefore strove to bring 
about a meeting of Colonel Roosevelt and Mr. Root, who had 
parted company in the unsuccessful campaign of 191 2, in prep- 
aration for a successful campaign of 1916. 

These two great leaders agreed, Colonel Roosevelt saying it 
would give him great pleasure "to consult as to the vital needs 
of this nation at this time in the matter of preparedness. 
It is appalling," he added, "to realize our impotence to-day in 
the face of any serious menace."^ 

This was on March 28, 1916, and shortly thereafter Colonel 
Roosevelt, Mr. Root, Senator Lodge, and General Wood sat 
down to luncheon with Mr. Bacon at his house in New York. 
It was the first time that ex-President Roosevelt and his 
Secretary of State, Elihu Root, had met since their estrange- 
ment. "I would leave less heavy in my heart," Mr. Bryce 
had said on leaving the United States as Ambassador, "were 
Roosevelt and Root working together. Their estrangement 
is a national calamity."^ 

Their meeting made for preparedness and their reconciliation 
was not the least service which Mr. Bacon rendered to the 
cause. 

Preparedness for this moment, when it should arrive (and 
Mr. Bacon knew it could not be long delayed), formed but a 

'Letter of Colonel Roosevelt dated March 28, 1916, to Mr. Bacon. 
^Boston Transcript, April i, 1916, Part 3, p. 3. 



272 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

part, although a very large part, of his activity, from the fateful 
week of August, 1914, to the week of April, 191 7, when the 
United States cut its neutral moorings and as a belligerent put 
boldly to sea to join the Allies "somewhere in France." 

Although his devotion to the Allies was boundless, Mr. 
Bacon's first and only allegiance was to America. But in 
serving the Allies, he felt he was serving America, for he knew 
they were maintaining the cause of America, although many 
loyal Americans did not know it. Indeed, his motives and his 
activities were alike misunderstood and assailed. One in- 
stance — the most notable among many — may be given, as it 
shows that Mr. Bacon was no respecter of persons when 
personal truth and international right were involved. 

In the summer and fall of 1916 President Wilson was con- 
ducting his campaign for reelection to the Presidency on the plea 
that he had kept the country out of war, to which Colonel 
Roosevelt wittily, and somewhat sharply, replied, after we had 
entered the war in 191 7: "Keep us out of war! I am the only 
man he has kept out of war," alluding to the refusal of Presi- 
dent Wilson to give him a commission in the army then forming 
for service overseas. 

After Mr. Bacon's failure to secure the nomination for Sena- 
tor in the Republican primaries, although he received 144,366 
in a total vote of 297,739, Mr. Wilson made a statement to the 
press, in which he spoke of Mr. Bacon as "a man whose avowed 
position in respect of international affairs was unneutral, and 
whose intention was to promote the interests of one side in the 
present war in Europe."^ The effect of Mr. Bacon's platform 
and the enormous vote was not lost upon President Wilson, 
who further said that "if the Republican Party should succeed, 
one very large branch of it would insist upon . . . a re- 
versal from peace to war." 

This criticism was made only a few months before President 
Wilson himself, discarding the peace slogan, appeared before 
the Congress of the United States on April 2, 191 7, and ad- 
vocated the declaration by Congress of a state of war by the 
United States against Germany, which Congress did on the 
memorable day of April 6, 1917. 

'New York Times, October 8, 1916, p. i. 



PART IX 

MILITARY SERVICE 

^^ Somewhere in France^ 



CHAPTER XVII 

Post Commandant at Chaumont 

On January 19, 191 7, Dr. Alfred Zimmermanrij then Imperial 
German Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, sent a note to 
the German Ambassador in Washington, and directed him to 
transmit it to the German Minister in Mexico. In this note 
Doctor Zimmermann stated that Germany intended on Febru- 
ary ir-t to begin unrestricted submarine warfare, and that if the 
United States could not be kept neutral, Germany would pro- 
pose to Mexico an alliance that the two countries would there- 
upon make war together, and peace together, and that in addi- 
tion to financial support, Mexico was to reconquer its lost 
territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. It was further 
proposed that the President of Mexico, upon his own initiative, 
was to suggest to Japan when war with the United States had 
become a certainty, that Japan should adhere to the plan, and 
that the President of Mexico should offer to mediate between 
Japan and Germany. The note ended with the statement 
that the employment of ruthless submarine warfare promised 
to compel England to make peace within a few months. 

President Wilson was informed by the German Ambassador 
on January 31st, before the contents of this note had become 
known to the Government of the United States, that on the 
morrow^ the ist of February, Germany would begin unre- 
stricted submarine warfare, and that neutral vessels might be 
destroyed, if found in the neighbourhood of the British Isles, 
as it was impossible for the commanders of submarines to dis- 
tinguish between enemy and neutral vessels! President Wilson 
directed Secretary of State Lansing to hand the German 
Ambassador his passports, and, appearing before Congress on 
the 3rd of February, outlined what he thought the United 
States should do under these changed conditions. Unrestricted 
submarine warfare went into effect, and American lives were 
lost and American property destroyed. Thereafter the Zim- 

275 



276 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

mermann note came to light, and was given to the press on 
the 1st of March, 1917. A month later President Wilson ap- 
peared before a joint session of the two Houses of Congress on 
April 2, 1 91 7, and asked for a declaration of war. Congress 
complied with this request in the following Resolution, signed 
by the President on April 6, 1917: 

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war be- 
tween the United States and the Imperial German Government which 
has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally de- 
clared; and that the President be, and he is hereby, authorized and 
directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United 
States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against 
the Imperial German Government; and to bring the conflict to a 
successful termination all of the resources of the country are hereby 
pledged by the Congress of the United States. 

It is useless to discuss whether we should have gone in im- 
mediately after the Liisitania outrage of May 7, 191 5; it is 
futile to conjecture what would have happened to Russia, the 
Allies, and the world if we had gone in earlier; it is enough that 
we do go in and that we were not too late. 

Immediately upon the declaration of war, Mr. Bacon cabled 
to some of his friends in England and in France. In reply 
he received from them letters showing that they appreciated 
to the full the importance of the American declaration and its 
inevitable consequences. To M. Hanotaux he cabled: 

^ TT ^ r. • April loth, 1917. 

Gabriel Hanotaux, 21 rue Cassette, rans. 

Profondement emu des evenements de ces derniers jours je m'in- 

cline pieusement devant I'entree de ma patrie dans cette guerre 

sacree. Salut a la France, salut aux ames nobles, purs et sans peur, 

des frangais qui m'ont ete 1' inspiration la plus elevee, la plus profonde 

de ma vie et qui m'ont consacre depuis les jours merveilleux de la 

Marne a la cause de France. Enfin et encore une fois Allies a la vie, 

a la mort. Gardez pour moi je vous prie quelques pensees. Que je 

puisse revenir en France prochainement avec le drapeau americain 

c'est mon reve le plus precieux.^ Robert Bacon. 

'^Translation: 

Profoundly stirred by the events of the past (few) days, I piously bow before the 
entering of my country into this holy war. Hail to France, hail to the noble, pure, 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 277 

In a cablegram of April 7th, to the Right Honourable Her- 
bert Asquith, then a Member of Parliament, and formerly- 
Prime Minister, Mr. Bacon said: 

My heart is very full and I cannot express the depths of my feeling 
of national pride and satisfaction in this solemn hour that my country 
has placed itself squarely on the side of the right. Accept my greet- 
ings and kindest personal regards and thanks for your noble senti- 
ments. With kind regards to Mrs. Asquith. 

At the same time he sent a more personal telegram to the 
Right Honourable David Lloyd George, then Prime Minister of 
Great Britain, having succeeded Mr. Asquith, and the most 
prominent man of that country in public life: 

Permit me, Sir, to express my deep and humble appreciation of the 
noble sentiments of your speech of yesterday. You may remember 
how keenly I have felt and understand the pride and satisfaction of 
this solemn hour and what it means to me that Americans may now 
again hold their heads high before the world. Accept my hearty 
thanks and kindest personal regards. 

To a cablegram of a similar tenor to Lord Bryce, Mr. Bacon 
received a reply under date of April 19th — the anniversary of 
Lexington and Concord: 

Thank you very much for your cablegram. It did us good. We 
knew how you would be feeling, but we liked to be told. It is like 
a new light in the sky to know that the American people are now 
standing side by side in a battle for all that is best in the world, 
Honour, Justice, Humanity. We shall win. 

Your people are taking off their coats for the work. Best send over 
some troops here, even if only a few thousand at first. Let the Ger- 
mans see them, and realize what it is that has brought honest, peace- 
loving men across the ocean as they never thought they would have 
cause to do. This would surely tell on the German mind, inexplicable 
thing as it is. They must see they can't win. They must feel there 
is something wrong with their Government when it has brought the 
wrathful indignation of all the civilized world upon them. 

and fearless spirit of the French people, who have been the greatest, the most pro- 
found inspiration of my life, and who from the wonderful days of the Marne have 
consecrated me to the cause of France. At last, once more, Allies in life and in 
death. Keep me in your thoughts, I beg of you. That I may soon return to France 
with the American flag is my fondest dream. 



278 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

You will probably be over soon, here or in France. . . . Mean- 
while, tell our common friends when you see them how we rejoice in 
this partnership in trying to serve and save the future of mankind. 
Our best regards to Mrs. Bacon. 

And one of Mr. Bacon's warmest friends, with whom he had 
been associated in France, at British Headquarters, in the early 
days of American neutrality, wrote to him from British General 
Headquarters, under date of April 28, 191 7: 

My dear Mr. Bacon: 

It was a great pleasure to get your letter by the hand of Doctor 
Strong, whose name has long been known to me in connection with 
tropical medicine. . . . 

I have often thought of you since America came into the war and 
I have felt sure that this event must have given you the very greatest 
pleasure, after all your hard work for the Allies. It is wonderful how 
the entry of America has fortified the general opinion over here. I 
think that the trend of opinion was becoming a little pessimistic, 
especially amongst the French who have had such terrible losses and 
on whom the ictus of the war has been so horribly severe. And events 
in Russia were beginn'ng to diminish optimism a good deal. But now 
the feeling has changed and we "look West" towards a new source of 
fortitude and a fresh pool of energy and resources. I wonder whether 
you will soon be over here again. ... At this moment, I am 
back in the town where we all lived together in Thresher's mess in 
1915. It is like old times being back here, but it emphasizes too much 
the stationary nature of this war to be back in a place sacred to the 
memory of 1914! 

The action of the President met with Mr. Bacon's unbounded 
and outspoken approval. He hoped it was not too late. In 
moments of discouragement he feared that it was; in more than 
one letter from the other side, he says that just as Queen Mary 
said "Calais" would be found engraved on her heart, so "too 
late" would be found engraved on his. For more than two 
years and a half he had urged preparedness and preached the 
gospel of sacrifice. He had gone to the Plattsburg Training 
Camp as an example to his countrymen. He must practise 
the gospel he preached, and nobody could offer his services 
earlier and oftener than he. Because of his experience in 
hospital work and his familiarity with the medical field service 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 279 

of the French and British armies, he telegraphed his friend, 
Major General Gorgas, Surgeon-General of the Army, in the 
hope that he might be commissioned in the Medical Reserve 
Corps and sent to France. General Gorgas gladly availed him- 
self of the offer and recommended Mr. Bacon for a Major's 
commission in the Reserve Corps, the highest grade to which 
initial appointments could be made from civil life. The rec- 
ommendation was not approved. Mr. Bacon then bethought 
himself of the Quartermaster Corps, in which he believed he 
might be useful, because of his large business experience. He 
was exceedingly anxious to go with General Pershing and his 
Staff, soon to start for France. All indirect approaches failed. 
He went to Washington and determined to beard the lions in 
their dens. General Pershing, whom Mr. Bacon knew per- 
sonally and who showed himself to be a true and loyal friend 
in the war, said he would be glad to have Mr. Bacon on his 
Staff if General Bliss, Chief of Staff, would ask his opinion; 
General Bliss, as fine and loyal a man and friend as ever donned 
a uniform, told Mr. Bacon that he would be glad to recommend 
his appointment if General Pershing should suggest it. Not 
much progress was made in this way, and time was pressing. 
Mr. Bacon therefore went directly to Mr. Newton D. Baker, 
then Secretary of War, to offer his services in person and to 
request a detail to General Pershing's Staff, which he had 
reason to believe would be agreeable to that officer. Mr. 
Frederic D. Keppel, then a personal assistant to Mr. Baker, 
and later on Assistant Secretary of War, stepped into the 
Secretary's office and came out with the word that the Secretary 
would lay the matter before the Chief of Staff and let him know 
the decision at noon. Mr. Bacon returned at that hour, to be 
informed that the Secretary had not yet got in touch with the 
Chief of Staff; but Mr. Keppel, who acted as intermediary — 
the two principals in this matter not being allowed to see one 
another — stated that a final decision would be given at 12.30. 
Mr. Bacon presented himself at that hour in the Secretary's 
antechamber. Mr. Keppel got the Secretary's ear, the door 
opened, Secretary Baker appeared for a moment with papers 
in hand, said the magic word "yes," and Mr. Bacon was a 
Major and a member of the advance guard of the American 
Expeditionary Forces. He received his commission in the 



280 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

afternoon and his orders in the evening. Thereafter, he found 
a notary public, took the oath of office, and left Washington 
on the midnight train, Saturday, for New York. A day later, 
on the morning of Monday, May 28, 1917, he passed the 
Statue of Liberty on the Baltic en route for France, with Gen- 
eral Pershing and his Staff. The days of final service and sac- 
rifice had begun. 

His first letter to Mrs. Bacon was from the Baltic^ on his way 
to the other side of the Atlantic from which all further letters 
were dispatched: 

On board R. M. S. Baltic 
May 28, 1917, Monday — 

Just on board at 4:30 and although it's against the rules I hope you 
will get this. ... I think I must be doing right and that you 
will be reconciled. ... I know how lonely you will be and how 
sore at heart but you must look forward to coming over before long. 
Send to Billy Phillips for your passport and give the real reason that 
you must go on business of the American Ambulance and come 
soon. . . .^ 

P. S. . . . Not a word about our sailing! ! 

The former Ambassador was returning to France in an official 
capacity — a Major of the United States Army on General 
Pershing's Staff. It was a wrench to the family, it was a loss 
to Harvard, of which Mr. Bacon was a Fellow. But family 
and college understood. "You have appreciated conditions," 
Mrs. Bacon wrote in her letter of June 14th, "so keenly for the 
last three years that now that your wish is fulfilled, I can well 
imagine what gratification this is to you." And in a note to 
Mrs. Bacon, of June 2nd, President Lowell of Harvard wrote 
and truly said: 

I should think Bob would be delighted to serve as Major on General 
Pershing's Staff. He can be immensely useful to the force in France 
for he understands the French people, and as Ambassador was greatly 
admired by them, and he must feel that he is really serving the coun- 
try in a military capacity. 

^Mr. Bacon's friend, William Phillips (1878- ), was then Assistant Secretary of 
State; Minister to The Netherlands and Luxembourg (1920-1922); Under-Secretary 
of State (1922- ). 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 281 

There is, of course, no need of his resigning from the Corporation, 
and everyone would regret very much if he did so. 

He may be gone a year or two, or perhaps less. Let us hope less. 

Major Bacon's next letter was written three days before 
landing, 

On board R.M.S. Baltic 

June 5th, 1917. 

I am afraid that long before this you have been worrying a little, 
and we shall not be in for another three days — not less than 10 days 
in all, and perhaps more. It has been a perfect voyage and this is a 
great old boat, steady as a rock, but is not fast. But the days have 
passed quickly, there have been so many things to do — meeting and 
getting to know 20 or 30 men, lectures every day at three o'clock on 
military subjects and, what do you think! teaching French twice a day 
for an hour or two each time — ten o'clock and four o'clock. 

The interpreters, among whom are Winty Chanler and Willie 
Eustis, each have a class of three or four, and I have six — Colonel 
Harbord, Chief of Staff, Col. Palmer, Major Nolan, Col. Brewster, 
Captain Collins, and Lieut. Bonar, who by the way has asked to join 
another class as we are too far advanced! I talk French to them, and 
we study phrases and vocabulary, and chiefly pronunciation as they 
all know a little. What do you think of that! 

It has all been very amusing and interesting and I am crazy about 
all these officers, and they are most kind and cordial to me, and ex- 
pect me to be really of use to them in all sorts of ways. The General 
has been most cordial and encourages me to think that I may be of 
service on his Staff. I can hardly wait to get ashore although my 
heart aches to think that you may be worrying and grieving . . . 
especially if it is true that New York has been closed on account of 
three sailing vessels having been sunk, as reported by wireless, but we 
shall be in London safe and sound in three days. 

This is the culmination of these last two years and ten months, and 
it is wonderful to think that after all I shall take part in this great 
struggle for the good of mankind — for the good of our own souls, in a 
way that you must approve. I hardly dare to think of arriving in 
England and France with the flag, and I know that I shall break down 
and cry like a child if any one says a kind word to me. I can't make 
this an interesting letter, ... as I cannot tell you what we have 
done and are doing, and so it will be in France I am afraid, — "Some- 
where in France" — A.E.F. which stands for American Expeditionary 
Force. — My address will be Major Robert Bacon, G.H.Q. — A.E.F. — 
France, or Morgan, Harjes, who will forward to me, as I expect to be 



282 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

very little in Paris, after I have helped the Ambulance at Neuilly all 
I can, and for the sake of the future of the American Ambulance at 
Neuilly and the hospital at Juilly and the Field Service and all the 
rest of it, I am mighty glad to be of this party, — I know I can be of 
more use in this way than any other. Major, or rather Colonel, 
Ireland is one of the very best, and I am crazy about him. . . . 
I shall try my best to make you pleased and proud of me. 

Admiration is often mutual. It certainly was in this case, 
if General Ireland's letter, written on October 15, 191 8, after 
months of association, is to be trusted, 

15 October, 191 8. 
My dear Colonel Bacon: 

It is out of the question for me to leave Europe without writing you 
a good-bye letter. 

You have meant so much to me ever since we sailed for France in 
May of 1917, and you have been so helpful in so many ways to the 
Medical Department that I just want to give you my expressions of 
appreciation before leaving. 

They have, for some reason or other, appointed me Surgeon- 
General of the Army. I am going back to take charge of the office 
and get the run of things over there and then come back here for 
further duty. In the meantime, I hope you will keep me in mind, for 
I should like to feel that I really have a place awaiting me among 
good friends. 

I know of no American who has suffered in sympathy during this 
war so much as you have, and I know of no American who has done 
more good than you have. 

The Lord bless you and your work. 

Always sincerely yours, 

M. W. Ireland, 
Major-General, U.S.A. 

Major Bacon's first letter from the Continent was written 
at a time when three family birthdays were celebrated: 

73 rue de Varennes 
Paris, July 2d, 1917. 

My heart is full of longing for you to-day . . . and I am 
sending off a birthday cable to you all — a sad birthday time, I know 
too well.^ Courage! . . . and try to think of me as believing 

^Mr. Bacon, as already stated, just missed the glorious 4th, being a day late. They 
had better luck with their children, for two were born on the 4th. 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 283 

this to be the greatest, most solemn duty that I have ever performed, 
seemingly small and unimportant, but to me a sacred thing to take 
some part, as I could not have done at home, in this great wonderful 
saving and making of nations, for, if we had not come in we should 
have gone down, down in humiliation and shame, and our National 
Soul would have been lost. So I believe with all my heart, and, be- 
lieving, I am impelled to make the sacrifice, and, what is far more 
important, to ask you to make the sacrifice of letting me go as I have 
gone . . . Here I had to stop and to-day is Saturday, the 7th, 
and I have had such a busy, exciting, and troublesome week that I 
have not had a moment. American Ambulance and Field Service, 
especially the former, have kept me awake many nights, but to-day, 
thank Heaven, I am beginning to see daylight, although there is still 
a hard row to hoe. I must not talk about it until it is settled, but 
some day I will pour my heart out and tell you what it has all meant 
to me. The Fourth was wonderful, the functions at the Invalides, 
and Picpus [where Lafayette is buried] described to you by the papers, 
and the march through the streets were beyond exaggeration. The 
tears have been very near the surface for me as you will readily under- 
stand, knowing what an old fool I am. I cannot begin to tell you how 
deeply I feel it all. My official family are the finest lot of fellows in 
the world, and I am proud to be along. I wish I could tell you all 
about it, and them, and what I do, and where I live (which I dare say 
you know), the most ideal place in all Paris. Tell O. M. that no words 
can express our gratitude and appreciation.^ 

These were busy days for the Commanding General and his 
Staff; they were especially so for Major Bacon, as it was for him 
"a homecoming," and he was the one member of the Expedi- 
tionary Forces to whom French was as a native tongue. It 
was, indeed, a great day for the Allies; American and British 
troops, which had never been seen together since old Colonial 
days, marched the streets of London in company, and France, 
war-worn but grim and determined, saw with bated breath 
and grateful eyes the advance guard of that American Army 
whose coming meant victory. Never was man more happily 
inspired in thought and expression than General Pershing, 
when he said on the memorable Fourth of July, 1917, one 
hundred and forty years after Lafayette's landing in America, 
*''' Lafayette, nous void." 

*The reference is to Mr. Ogden Mills, wliose house Mr. Bacon secured for General 
Pershing during the brief sojourn in Paris. 



284 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

A touching incident will perhaps make the meaning of it all to 
France clearer than any amount of description. The Poilus 
are said to believe that in some mysterious way their armies 
were led by Jeanne d'Arc. A French officer, recovering from 
his wounds in a hospital, was mentioning certain instances of 
this belief which had come to his knowledge. His nurse, an 
American woman, ventured to ask him if he accepted these 
stories, and if he himself believed in the voices of the Maid. 
While hesitating as to the reply which he should make, Ameri- 
can bugles rang out in the distance, and, smiling, he turned to his 
questioner and said, " Void les voix qui 072t sauvees la FranceT^ 

The things of which Major Bacon wanted most to speak, he 
hardly dared mention, but he could write of the Hospital, which 
hung round his neck like a millstone. Mrs. Bacon was involved 
as well as he and it figures largely in his letters until it was 
settled to the satisfaction of all. It was, however, only one of 
the many things which he did, and it was only one of the many 
worries, albeit a very personal one. It was also an official duty, 
as a board of officers had been appointed to settle the status 
of the Hospital, of which Colonel Ireland was president and 
Mr. Bacon a member.^ Major Bacon's letter of July 17th is 
full of the Hospital : 

Never have I had a more difficult and trying job than the settle- 
ment of the American Ambulance question. For 30 days it has oc- 
cupied almost all my time, jour et nuit^ for it has bothered me so that 
I have not slept and many a night the dawn at 3 or 4 o'clock has found 

^The expression "Nous les aurons!" which came to the front during the World War, is 
of ancient and honourable lineage. It was used by Jeanne d'Arc at the battle of 
Patay. See Pierre Champion's Proces de Condamnation de Jeanne d'Arc, vol. ii 
(1921), p. cix. 

2 ... to consider in detail the best method of coordinating in Europe the 
American Red Cross and the other relief activities operating here from the United 
States, also the relations of the various relief organizations to one another, and to the 
military service; this not only to secure the avoidance of duplication of work, but to 
meet the wishes of the French authorities actively engaged in the war, who desire that 
all such work shall be centralized under a single control in order to secure the maximum 
of efficiency with the minimum of friction. A suggestion for the delimitation of the work 
of the Red Cross and allied activities and of the relative importance of the various 
forms of distress now calling for such agencies should be submitted. 

20. The Board will submit a working plan by which the foregoing may be ac- 
complished. Benjamin Alvord, Adjutant General, to Colonel M. W. Ireland, Letter 
of Instructions, dated Paris, June 20, igij. 










<;7/^ 



Field-iMarshal Sir Douglas Hak 



I 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 285 

me wakeful and restless and full of exaggerated fears. Never have 
I cared more to settle a thing correctly, wisely, and with harmony, 
and every day you have appeared to me, and your intense interest, 
your loyal devotion of the past 35 months has loomed larger and larger, 
and I have suffered from the fear of a possible blow to you if things 
did not come out right. I repeat that never have I cared more for 
anything and now after these 30 days of uncertainty and fear, ab- 
ject fear, everything has been settled satisfactorily, and on Sunday 
next the transfer will be made, and the work will be continued for 
France under the management, direction, control, and maintenance of 
the Army and the Red Cross. It is impossible for me to describe the 
different phases and steps which have led up to the settlement. 

It would take me hours of personal explanation, which cannot be 
made in the written word. All I can say is, thank God it is over, and 
creditably and honorably over. 

The proud record of the A[merican] A[mbulance], the monument of 
sympathy, the symbol of your devotion and of the generous givers at 
home, and of the workers here, can never be diminished. Nothing can 
ever detract from the achievement of unselfish, untiring, spontaneous 
personal self-sacrifice of yourself and the other workers for the cause 
under the old volunteer regime of the past 2S nionths, and now the 
absolutely necessary change has come, and the work will go on for 
France au secours aux blesses frangais, and the flag will come down on 
Sunday, and the new flag will go up — all honor to them both. 

I cannot begin to tell you under the eye of the Censor what it all 
means to me; how my heart has been torn, how it has represented for 
me all the hope, all the anguish of these 35 months of humiliation. 
Well, it is nearly over now, and I can give more thought and attention 
to the great big things that are confronting us all, and of which I must 
not speak. 

Did I tell you that Gicquel and I are keeping house? Me actually 
keeping house! The garden is perfectly lovely, but my friend Colonel 
Alvord says that he is so afraid of the Censor that he has described it 
16 times to his wife, having nothing else to say. That is about my 
case, and there is so much that I want to say to you from my heart. 
The other work of which you speak has lost nearly all interest for me, 
and must settle itself, as it will now that it has been firmly taken in 
hand by higher powers. 

Grayson Murphy is fine, and Jim Perkins and Alex, and they are 
all busy as busy on the biggest and finest job in the world. 

Tell Davy that I congratulate him for his wisdom and courage in 
taking hold of it. The marvellous success of his campaign is one of 
the wonders and the possibilities for good and for real service beyond 
all dreams. Tell Mrs. Davy too how pleased I am for her, and how 



286 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

splendid I think it is — and now your own dear self and little family. I 
am delighted to hear better news of little Hope. Tell Sister to write 
me, and forgive my not telling her that awful hectic day that I sailed 
away. Tell me all you possibly can of the boys, even if you cable it, 
and of your life in Woods Hole and Westbury. I am thrilled about 
what you tell me of Davy and the Red Cross.^ You are too wonder- 
ful — Cable me often and spare no expense. . . . 

In a letter of July 3rd to Major Bacon, Mrs. Bacon had said: 

I hear on all sides how jubilant you are to be abroad, and to take 
part in the preparations for the awful days ahead. I only wish I was 
as active as you. . . . 

and in acknov^ledging two letters which had just been received 
on July 7th, she added, 

I knew you were happy abroad, even before I was told of 's 

letter, in which he said he had never seen any one more jubilant, for 
had I not read all this on your face before you left? I can appreciate 
what your thoughts have been for the past three years, and how 
ashamed you have been that we have not taken part in this struggle 
sooner, so I know what satisfaction it gives you to see us deep now in 
war, and doing our duty. . . . 

[Paris] July 24th, '17. 
I am just back from a three days* trip in the country, several hun- 
dred miles on duty, and it was a delightful change and respite from 
Paris, and the unhappy Ambulance situation, about which I found 
your cable on my return.^ The most difficult problem I ever had 
anything to do with, and the most complicated by the personal equa- 
tion. But now the change has been made and I have every confidence 
that the work will go on for France just as before, and you can send 



^The reference Mr. Bacon makes is to the Red Cross work in which Grayson Murphy, 
James H. Perkins, and Dr. Alexander Lambert, were engaged. 

2A Board had been appointed, of which Major McCoy, later Brigadier-General, 
Mr. Bacon, later Colonel, and Lieutenant Colonel de Chambrun were members, to 
decide upon headquarters for the American Army. The Board visited and recom- 
mended Chaumont. The recommendation was adopted. 

Comte de Chambrun (1872- ) was a Lieutenant Colonel in the French Army, 
attached to American headquarters. With Captain de Marenches he has written an 
interesting and valuable work entitled L! Armee Americaine dans le Conflit Europeen 
(Paris, 1919). 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 287 

just as many endowed beds as come to you, the Red Cross standing 
behind to provide the necessary maintenance and the Army paying 
salaries and rations of professional personnel — doctors, nurses, and 
enlisted men, the civilian employees being paid by the Red Cross. 
The work continues under French military regulations and control as 
before, our reserve officers and nurses being loaned to France for 
Secours aux blesses frangais, till the end of the war, the old volunteer 
basis, with its proud record of achievement and sympathy remaining 
undiminished, untarnished through the years, symbol of your never- 
failing devotion and wonderful energy and courage. . . .^ 

It is six o'clock in the morning, and I have been thinking all night 
of your letters, and your life, and the boys. The impression that you 
have that I am jubilant is far from the truth. Do you not understand 
how the dread of the future hangs over me, too! Do you suppose for 
a moment that I do not feel it just as keenly, that it is not for me the 
most solemn and dreadful thing to contemplate! You cannot think 
that I have a light heart, and do not realize the awful possibilities. 
Of course I am glad that the Nation is to be saved by the very blood 
and tears that it must shed. The Nation's soul was nearly lost, and 
could we have held up our heads if we had stayed out from fear, and 
to profit by the agony of the rest of the world, and if that is so, can 
we the people, the citizens of the Nation, not do our part even with 
our lives if necessary? Noblesse oblige, as it has ever been, and the 
flower of the land must pay its great sacrifice. What use now to 
complain of our fatuous unwillingness to prepare, of our blood guilti- 
ness? How can we escape, any of us! . . . Of course I am proud 
in my old age to be asked to play even a very small part, to make my 
own personal sacrifice, but I am constantly shaken with the deepest 
emotion which I cannot conceal. Never a day passes without a great 
sob in my heart, and a longing to be something more to you in this 
time of trial. I have made my bed, I am afraid . . . and I must 
try to show a brave face to the world, but my heart is full of remorse 
that I have not been, cannot be more of a comfort and support to 
you, dear brave soul, in this crisis. . . 



lA letter from Mr. Bacon, written on Sunday, July 28th, 6:30 a. m. deals, wholly with 
the transfer of the American Hospital to the military authorities, and placing it under 
military control. In the course of this letter he says: 

"It has spoiled everything for me for six weeks . . . and I have not had a de- 
cent night's sleep since it began ... I do hope you will go on as your cables 
suggest, receiving beds and ambulances for the Paris Service and keeping up your 
wonderful personal influence in the work for France, by keeping alive the moral sup- 
port at home of the new management, which will work out all right, you can be 
sure. No change has been made except for the better." 
Mrs. Bacon did. 



288 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Before the next letter a cable had come from Mrs. Bacon, 
clearing up the misunderstanding, and Major Bacon himself 
had received a detail which expressed appreciation of him and 
his work. His letter of August 5th is therefore not only cheer- 
ful, but ends with a touch of pleasantry. 

It is so hard to write . . . when you have to stop every minute 
to wonder whether you ought to say the things you want to say. I 
am dying to tell you everything that I do and with whom I am work- 
ing, but I must mention no names of officers and as mine is a life of 
very personal relations there is nothing left to say. I was so pleased 
to get your last cable that you and Davy were completement d" accord^ 
and that you and your committee are going right ahead. I had to 
cable you again to be careful to make a full statement to your contrib- 
utors so that there can be no misunderstanding. There are no 
wounded coming to Paris now, so work at Neuilly is very light, but 
everything is straightening out I think and Major Peed and Jim 
Hutchinson are working well together. 

I hope that there will be plenty of letters written to the donors of 
your beds. ... It has been a difficult, and for me a sad and 
uncomfortable and trying time, but I feel sure that it is all for the best 
and was inevitable. 

The work will go on as before, and the administration and service 
better than ever. This you can assure everybody with perfect truth 
and safety. . . . 

I am doing my best to keep up everyone's courage. Murphy and 
Perkins are fine, and are doing great work. You may all be proud of 
the new Red Cross. It will do wonders for the French, and will be 
appreciated more and more. 

I have a new job, and am very pleased and proud to be asked to do 
something definite. I have a desk in the office of the best and most 
important of the higher officers, and the work of organization and in- 
struction is going ahead very fast. The whole p"oblem is so colossal 
in its proportion, that it is fascinating, and, of course, of vital im- 
portance. 

So far I have not had a moment to myself since we arrived, 
and have not accepted a single invitation, although I have had a 
good many. We dine almost always at home and Gicquel and I 
run the mess as I told you. Mrs. Sharp, who is very nice and really 
able, is to be the head of all the affiliated Red Cross Women's Com- 
mittees. ... 

Isn't it fine about Bob's being chosen first? Tell him I was terribly 
proud of him, and am telling all my intimate soldier friends, and 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 289 

G.^ too and Ett^ and the girls and the babes. . . . Tell Sister' I 
loved her letter, as I always do. I wish she would write often if she 
can find the time. Grand-dada is not much of a "boom-boom" boy, 
but he knows it is his duty to try to play a small part in this awful 

crisis. 

Aug. 13th, '17. 

. . . How I want to pour out my heart to you and tell you all 
my hopes and fears, and all the details of my life here and all about the 
Army, and the officers, and to discuss the war and France and Eng- 
land and Russia and above all America^ and unless I can do all that I 
cannot tell you what is in my mind and heart, I cannot tell you how 
pleased and relieved I was to get your cable and to feel that you under- 
stood and were reconciled to Ambulance change. Everything is 
settling down and now all we need is wounded. I told you all this in 
my last letter but it has been so on my mind that you won't mind my 
saying it again. , . . 

It is all so big and wonderful, and I long so to be of use and play a 
part. It is pathetic, and if you could listen to my longing to do some- 
thing really worth while, you would pity me — but it is too late! I am 
very humble and would be satisfied with Oh! so little, and I shall wait 
as patiently as I can. 

I am much excited to hear the news of the boys to-day — they must 
have finished their exams and I am in an awful nip to hear the result. 
I can't think that they will turn Ett down, as he fears. He would 
make a better officer than 9-ioths of them. I can't bear to think of 
them as officers and yet if they hadn't gone would you and I have 
been satisfied? . . . This war is changing everything for every- 
body, as I have felt from the first that it would. It is reaching down 
to the very depths of our lives, nationally and individually, and we in 
America do not yet know it, and are still living in a fool's paradise, 
and a few of our 100 millions must pay the price and by our sacrifice 
pay that the nation shall live. It is unjust, but it always will be so, 
as it always has been. As for me again, what should I have done! 
What would you have had me do! What could I have done, had I 
accepted the fact that I am an old man unfit for any real service it 

^Robert Low Bacon, the eldest son, had just passed first in the training camp and 
been commissioned a Major of Artillery. In the election of November 3, 192:, he 
was chosen a Republican member of the House of Representatives from the first Con- 
gressional District of the State of New York. "G" refers to Major Bacon's second son, 
Caspar Griswold, Captain, and later Major of Artillery, in the National Army. "Ett" 
is his youngest son, Elliott Cowdin, a Captain of Artillery, National Army, recom- 
mended for promotion as Major, in Franct. "Sister" is his daughter, Mrs. George 
Whitney. "Virginia" (V.) is Robert L. Bacon's wife. "Priscilla" (P.) is Caspar's 
wife, and "Hope" (Little Hope) is Elliott's wife. 



290 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

appears! All the men of my age at home have jobs, business, politics, 
Red Cross of some kind. I had no work of any kind and I simply had 
to jump at any chance, and I must say that they have ail been kind 
and considerate and indulgent. All the French people have tried to 
treat me as an Ambassador, you know them, but I will not have it, 
and am trying my best to be just a number with no identity except my 
shoulder straps. They wonder and think it queer and imagine some 
hidden motive and meaning, knowing full well that I am not good 
enough for a soldier. . . . 

On August 2 1 St, Major Bacon writes from "A little typical 
hotel somewhere in France." The typical hotel was the Hotel 
de France; the place was Chaumont.^ General, then Major, 
McCoy tells how Chaumont was chosen : 

Later on in July, the Commander-in-Chief appointed him [Major 
Bacon], Colonel De Chambrun, and myself on a board to make a sur- 
vey of Lorraine, and report upon the best place for the American 
General Headquarters. It was a very congenial board, and we not 
only were able to work very effectively, but with the most sym- 
pathetic assistance of the French High Command, and of Marechal 
Petain and General de Castelnau, General de Castelnau commanded 
the group of armies into which the American Forces were to be in- 
serted, so that his acquaintance with the General came very apropos. 
We visited the General and he showed us every courtesy and gave us 
his potent assistance. Based upon our report. General Pershing 
decided upon Chaumont, and on September first. General Head- 
quarters was removed from Paris to that place.^ 

August 2ist, 1917. 
"A Httle typical hotel somewhere in France." 

I have very few spare moments. . . . New French people of 
every class — many conversations with soldiers, landladies, officials. 



^Mr. George Whitney, Mr. Bacon's son-in-law, visited him at Chaumont during this 

period of feverish activity. A few lines from a personal note which he wrote to Mr. 

Bacon upon leaving France for the United States are of interest in this connection: 

"I should think that the results which you accomplished by your own individual 

efforts must be a great satisfaction to you, for the work you have done and are doing 

is of the greatest importance although of course it is not showy, and I feel confident 

that as things shake down a little you will be enormously helpful in some other 

capacity which may prove less detailed and so more congenial." 

*Letter to Mrs, Bacon dated October 15, 1920. 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 291 

functionaries, and all in my best French which by the way is some- 
times good, but generally very unsatisfactory — you know the kind! 
An aeroplane is humming over my head as I look out my back window 
into the court of the hotel, where there are automobiles . . . and 
some chestnut trees. 

I thought of you a great deal to-day ... in a nice old garden 
with espaliers covered with fruit, and flowers— phlox and all those 
things that I know so much about and reminded me of you, and a 
nice little old lady, the only resident, who told me a pathetic story of 
why everything was not kept up, why many of her palms and orangiers 
and lauriers and all the other things just like yours were dying or 
dead, because there was not coal enough last year to heat the serres, 
and a terrace that looks out over a wonderful valley, and I felt the 
foolish choke in my voice as I talked to her, and tried to sympathize. 
Well, I've taken her house for a certain ofiicer . . .^ 

I have been here twice before, and this time for six days, and I am in 
command of the small but growing contingent. I wish I could de- 
scribe the old church and the nice old crooked streets. . . . Your 
telegram about the boys and Bob's being a Major fairly delighted 
me. I am very proud of him, and of the others, too. Nobody knows, 
but you and I, what a satisfaction it is to have old Dobbo^ come out so 
well, and little G. and our baby boy, and I read with dread, and a mix- 
ture of deep emotion and faith and hope that 2,000 officers are already 
ordered to France. . . . 

Sunday Morning 
Sept. loth, 191 7. 
The church bells are ringing me awake and to work, and I have 
only a few minutes before I must shave and get my coffee, and hurry 
away for another busy, busy day — another just like the past twenty- 
five days, in this nice old town "out there" in France — just a few 
minutes to begin a little letter to you . . . only to tell you that I 
love you and am thinking of you and home every day in spite of the 
fact that from six o'clock until the small hours I am engrossed in a job 
which I must not describe, but which comprises pretty much all the 

iMr. Bacon did not add that this was his home as well as that of General Pershing. 
General McCoy does, 

"We hoped to have Colonel Bacon live with us, but were deprived of that by the 
Commander-in-Chief's insistence upon his remaining with him, but our more informal 
and merry mess never passed a day without his dropping in, either for a meal or after 
dinner in the evening, and very quickly he was at home, not only with ourselves, but 
with Winty Chanler, Willie Eustis, Dick Peters, Willard Straight, Peter Bowditch, and 
many others of his old and dear friends who stopped by or with us." 

^A nickname for the oldest son. 



292 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

human activities that you can think of, and even in my old age I am 
a little proud at having been complimented and congratulated by a 
certain officer for having done it well, inconspicuous and humble 
though it has been. 

My big window looks out of the top story of what they call the 
chateau — two great big windows in a sort of corner tower where from 
a bed, the posts of which are fifteen feet high, I look out at the stars 
due west and think every night that over there you are . . . 
working your heart out for everybody but yourself — weary in body 
and mind but with a courage finer, bigger than any one of us and than 
any one else in the world. 

If your boys and girls and your grandchildren ever really come to 
know and appreciate all this it will be for them a priceless inheritance. 
Bless your dear heart! 

If you get this letter it will be probably in about a month — about the 
lOth of October — and I want you to remember that I am thinking of you 
on that day, for I may not be able to send a cable. Gicquel, my only 
comfort, has come in to wake me and start me off for another day, so 
I must postpone my little talk with you. My friends of this house- 
hold are starting off to ride, but alas I have no horse, and for me there 
is not even that little exhilaration and relaxation. 

Nearly a week has gone by since I began this scrawl . . . and 
to-day is Thursday, I believe, the 13th. I know it is the 13th because 
it is the General's birthday, which I did not know till twenty minutes 
before dinner and just had time to tell Gicquel to pick some flowers 
in the neglected old garden and to rush off to the hotel to get a bottle 
of champagne to drink his health, the first time we have had wine of 
any kind on the table, so you see we are not high livers. Well, to-day 
has been a red letter day in a way for me . . . for I have been 
given a real job with all I can possibly swing to, for every minute of 
the day, and which taxes every ounce of energy and capacity that 
I can muster to make good, and I find that I care just as much to do it 
well, and not to make mistakes as ever I have cared in my life, and you 
know . . . that with all my faults, I have always tried hard to 
do the thing that I had to do, and that I have cared a great deal, often 
too much. But perhaps it is better to be absorbed, as you say, for I 
have been very homesick of late and have longed to be with you, and 
share my hopes and fears and all the time I find myself asking what 
you would think, for I care more for that than anything or everything 
else in the world. 

Don't forget me on the loth "and I will pledge with mine. . . ." 
The winter ahead seems long and drear, and everything seems unreal. 
The news of poor Russia is very sad to-day, coming as it does the very 
day of the arrival of your clippings with Root's brave words of faith 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 293 

and hope/ which I have been sharing even up to the last days, and 
even now with new revolution rending her asunder, I have a sort of 
beHef that the new spirit of the Russian people will conquer in time 
to save them from the awful fate of Prussian domination. 

It is not possible that this monstrous thing will be permitted to suc- 
ceed ! We must all pay a tremendous price no doubt, and some of us 
must sacrifice all that we hold most dear, but the world will emerge a 
better, finer world, and will shake off the shackles of hate and lust and 
senseless passion, which the unspeakable boche has tried to fasten 
upon it. It cannot be possible either that these fiends will not be 
made to suffer for the pain and agony and humiliating degradation 
which they have willfully brought upon mankind. I confess that I 
cannot speak or think of them with anything but loathing. 

I must stop now to-night to change my murderous thoughts. A 
mail came to-day, but nothing from you . . . and I know it is 
unreasonable but I was as peevish as anything — I look forward so to 
your dear letters. 

I had a nice one from Sister from Bar Harbor with good news of 
herself and the babes (they must be pretty cunning), and a letter 
from Nelly^ at Barnstable. Tell her I was delighted that she had 
been there and wish she would go there all the time. The old place 
ought to be provided for the next few generations as I have often said 
to you, for if anything happens to me, who will care enough to keep 
it going just for sentiment. . . . 

I must go to bed now or I shall lose my beauty sleep. 

I feast upon every detail you can find time to send me of your life, 
and of the boys' soldier life and prospects. Tell Bob I received his 
cable, but did not know how to answer. He will know best what to 
do, and God bless him. . . . 



iMr. Root, as Ambassador Extraordinary, headed "the American Mission to Russia 
to express the deep friendship of the American people for the people of Russia, and to 
discuss the best and most practical means of cooperation between the two peoples in 
carrying the present struggle for the freedom of all peoples to a successful consumma- 
tion." 

Upon his return from Russia, Mr. Root delivered an address, "Faith in Russia," on 
August 15, 1917, in New York City, before the Chamber of Commerce of the State of 
New York. Almost the last words of this address were, 

"Ah! If we love freedom, if we are true children of our fathers, and cherish their 
ideals, confidence and hope will go out from us to those brave Russians who are 
fighting our battles as they are fighting their own; and we will uphold the hands of 
our Government and encourage the spirit of our people to do our duty beyond meas- 
ure, to help them in their great and noble work." The United States and the War; 
The Mission to Russia; Political Addresses, by Elihu Root, collected and edited by 
Robert Bacon and James Brown Scott (1918), pp. 161, 167. 

^Mr. Bacon's cousin, Miss Ellen Bacon. 



294 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Six days later, September i6th, he began a letter, 

I seem to have a few minutes before dinner ... for the first 
time since I came here 34 days ago. Usually I get home, if you call it 
"home," just in time to eat without time for washing my hands. It 
has been a lovely, still September day, such as you may be having at 
home, and everyone except me has had less to do and almost everyone 
has been to ride or walk. I really miss the horses to-day, but I have 
sent to Paris to buy one if it is a possible thing, which I doubt, and I 
don't know who will take care of it, if I get one. I haven't much 
faith in orderlies. 

I want so much to tell you in detail of my new job. My duties and 
responsibilities are almost more than I can count. I mustn't even tell 
you what it is, but do you remember my telling you about an English 
officer, a friend of mine with whom I messed when I was attached to 
the British Army, not Colonel Cummins who was a medico but a 
Colonel Thresher? Well, I have been given his command here in 
this nameless place although my proposition is far more complicated 
than his. Bob will remember I think what it is called. I want very 
much to go to Paris for a day, but I cannot leave at present for an 
hour. I need more clothes for the winter, having had two coats 
taken, my mistake, not by mistake, and it takes at least a month 
now to get things from England. I am very homesick for you . , . 
but I try hard to think it is all for the best, and that it was really my 
duty, although my conscience often wonders, as it is apt to do, and 
my heart aches when I think of you tugging away alone. All my 
friends here have left wives and families at home, but somehow I feel 
sometimes that the case of real soldiers is different. Not one of them 
works harder than I, however, or tries harder to do his duty, or cares 
more about doing it well. 

General Pershing, in Special Orders No. 95, detailed Major 
Robert Bacon as Post Commandant of Chaumont, and put 
under his command all troops at the Headquarters; detailing 
assistants to the Commandant, and a company of Marines of 
the Marine Corps for provost and other guard details as the 
Commandant should require. 

What were the duties of the Commandant and his assistants, 
which Major Bacon struggled so bravely, but so inadequately, 
because of the Censor, to inform his devoted wife? He was not 
the only officer puzzled, as is evident from an illuminating 
letter of Colonel Thresher, to whom Major Bacon refers to a 
fellow-officer, 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 295 

Dear Col, Wagstaff, 

Your letter was forwarded to me here where I am on a few days* 
leave. I return to France on 25th. I'm afraid there is no " text book" 
on the duties of a Camp Commandant, which are like Sam Weller's 
knowledge of London, "extensive and peculiar." 

Roughly speaking, he is in the position of Commanding Officer of 
all troops except officers, at G. H. Q.— clerks, servants, grooms, 
chauffeurs, fatigue men, etc. My command now numbers 1400, 
exclusive of units attached such as. Signals, Wireless, Infantry guard, 
A.A. batteries. He is responsible for the discipline, pay, and all in- 
terior economy of these troops. He also arranges billets, messes, 
and office accommodation for all G. H. Q. The A. P. M. is a police- 
man pure and simple: he arrests offenders who are brought before the 
Camp Comdt. for disposal. On my return to G. H. Q. I will ask the 
P. M. to send you the A. P. M.'s handbook. I shall be delighted to 
answer any other questions. 

My greetings to Bacon. 

Yours sincerely, 

J. H. Thresher.' 
Camp Comdt. is also Censor at G. H. Q. 

iThe many and varied duties of Post Commandant are thus enumerated by the 
Adjutant General at General Headquarters, American Expeditionary Forces in France. 

1 "EXTRACT COPY" "Headquarters American Expeditionary Forces. 

France, September 13, 1917. 
From: Adjutant General. 
To: Commandant, Headquarters, A. E. F. 
Subject: Duties of the Commandant and his Assistants. 

1. In connection with paragraphs 6, 7, and 8, S. O., No. 95, current series, these 
headquarters, detailing a Commandant and Assistants at these headquarters, the 
Commander-in-Chief directs me to inform you that the duties of Commandant include 
the following: 

(a) The installation, distribution, furnishing, heating, lighting, telephone, and 
messenger service for the various offices, quarters and barracks. 

(b) Day and night guard over offices, quarters and barracks, including a roster 
under such instructions as will cause an Officer of the Day to be on duty at all times 
at these headquarters, and be responsible that no unauthorized persons enter the 
headquarters enclosure. 

(c) Lodging and billeting of all officers, troops and authorized visitors to Head- 
quarters A. E. F. 

(d) All matters pertaining to discipline, pay, sanitation, and police of troops stationed 
at these headquarters. 

(e) Service of automobiles, motor trucks, motorcycles, and bicycles, including the 
obtaining and issuing of passes for authorized trips from these Headquarters A.E.F. 

(f) Responsibility for order and service of security at Hq. A.E.F., especially pre- 
cautions and defense against fire and aerial attack. 

(g) Adjusting of wages and prices in accordance with French regulations. 

2. Inasmuch as the town of Chaumont is under French control, measures re. 



296 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

The gigantic task of preparing Chaumont to receive twenty 
thousand American troops devolved upon Major Bacon. 
Chaumont was a town set on a hill and without adequate 
facilities for such an unprecedented influx of men. It was 
composed of some fifteen thousand inhabitants. The little 
city did not appear to receive the proposition with enthusiasm, 
and the threatened lack of cooperation on their part might 
have seriously hampered the work. His unfailing tact stood 
Major Bacon in good stead, and almost from the first he had 
the Mayor and the town working with him in perfect accord. 
In person he made his contacts with the people, going from 
house to house to arrange for quarters. He took over the hotel, 
and rented in his own name two houses — one to use for an 
officers' club, the other to entertain visitors. These, however, 
were minor details in the tremendous task of arranging to care 
for the troops. For a military engineer it would have been no 
mean feat; it was a veritable triumph for a man recently from 
civilian life to accomplish it within two weeks, without in- 
structions other than to have the camp ready, and with no 
assistants other than men commandeered from a neighbouring 
camp. It was his good fortune to be known to the officers of 
the Boston Cadets, who were stationed near by, and he was 
thus able to get engineers and men to do the actual work. 
Barracks were constructed, systems of sewerage and drainage 
were installed, water supply and shower baths put in, a recrea- 
tion hut prepared, workshops, garages, and the like, essential 
for the running of an army camp, were built. Furniture had 
to be procured, supplies distributed, and men and officers ar- 
riving unheralded in carloads taken care of. 

The Mayor of Chaumont still speaks with admiration of the 
way in which Major Bacon accomplished what seemed to 
him impossible. He was astonished at the way in which a 
former Ambassador to France not only directed the work, but 
set to work himself, literally with pick and shovel. But of 
the achievements and of the obstacles Mr. Bacon could say 
nothing in his letters. 

garding methods to be taken in case of bombing attack, extinguishing of lights, etc., 
should be adopted only after consultation by the Commandant with the French au- 
thorities at Chaumont. 

(signed) Benj. Alvord-" 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 297 

Major Bacon was interrupted and did not get a chance with 
his pen until two days later, September i8th: 

It is now Tuesday night, and I must say a word . . . before I 
go to my restless bed. You have been in my mind all the time, and I 
have felt very, very far away and I have longed to be at home with 
you and to pour my heart out to you and have you understand I am 
deep, deep in this local soldier's life, and nothing but saying to myself 
all the time that I must go on with it, and play the game and lie on 
the bed which I have made, keeps my courage from oozing out alto- 
gether, and to-day your letter came, long overdue, and when you said 
that life seemed now all so changed and different and unhappy, it 
found an instant echo in my heart. ... It will be 34 years now 
in a few weeks, and if after this dreadful nightmare, this awful trial 
and period of suffering and sacrifice you and I shall be spared for 10 
more years together let us consecrate them now to all the dreams and 
hopes, to the ideals and faith of our youth, the simple, beautiful, 
homely things, which you and I have inherited, and we will try to pass 
on to our grandchildren, bless their hearts. The little blue-eyed 
curly haired girl must be pretty cunning. You say she is plump and 
round. Do you remember our own baby girl? The most beautiful 
thing that I ever saw ! or am I dreaming ? It could not have been more 
than 27 years ago! 

I am tempted to send you a copy of Special Order No. , and of 

a letter of the A. G. defining my duties, and responsibilities, which are, 
to say the least arduous, although, as I said before, humble and in- 
conspicuous. 

I was honored on Saturday by being invited to the first formal 
luncheon given to the C. in C. A French General with characteristic 
amiability said pleasant things about me, thanked the C. in C. for 
having given me my present job, which brought me into personal con- 
tact with him and told the guests of my appointment, whereupon an- 
other distinguished French General, whom I admire and respect tre- 
mendously, and who you will remember Hanotaux and I called upon 
at Chateau Thierry said '' le pauvre, le pauvre,''^ realizing that it would 
be indeed a thankless job. 

I am discouraged about my French, as I am always at a loss for 



iThe Marquis Edouard de Castelnau (1851- ). In August and September. 1914, 
his repulse of Prince Rupprecht's VI Army on the heights of the Grand Couronne 
not only saved Nancy, but paved the way for the overwhelming victory of the Marne. 

In 1916, he was detailed to Verdun, when it was in danger of falling before the 
German attack, and his part "in steadying and inspiring the historic F"rench resistance 
cannot easily be exaggerated. After a few days' work, he was able to hand over the 



298 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

construction and correct expression, although of course I am much 
better than I used to be when you knew me. I do wish you were 
here. . . . You who have so long known and loved France, and of 
all others have done more and made greater sacrifices. Some day you 
and I will be together again in France, poor, tired, bleeding, suffering 
France. Oh, the pity of it all! Will France ever be the same again ? 
There is no laughter, no happy face, no cheery smile to conceal the 
anguish, but plenty of brave, grim determination, and the sort of 
pride and resignation which one might have seen in Charleston, South 
Carolina. 

Have I said this before to you? Perhaps, for I am constantly re- 
minded of Miss Pringle by the gentle women of this place, whose 
dignity and fortitude and simplicity touch me to the quick, and bring 
tears running down my cheeks, as they offer me their rooms and their 
hospitality for our officers, and tell me gratefully and gracefully 
of their appreciation and thanks to us all, and to Amerique, who has 
come to help them and save them. Can you not feel the pathos, the 
constant emotion of it? Old fool that I am, the tears are running 
down my cheeks at this minute. And this is the atmosphere in which 
I am living. No amount of worry and engrossing attention to detail 
from morning till night seems to lessen the emotion of my every day. 
I hope I can hold out! — I am standing it finely so far, and with no let- 
up or exercise and very Httle sleep. Everyone else has a bad cold and 
is run down, and sneezing and coughing and I am in daily fear of 
catching the infection. You know how susceptible I am to that kind 
of streptococcus, and to-day for the first time I confess I am a little 
tired. 

I wish I could hear more of the boys. Do send me all the details 
you can glean. I know how hard it is to screw much out of them. 

I was quite touched when the nice old French General of whom I 
spoke asked me if I had good news of my boys. I had told him two 
months ago that they were in the Army. 

The letter of September 19th begins with a confession: 

Wednesday, Sept. 19th, '17. 
I boasted too much last night ... for to-day I have taken 
the infection as I feared from some of the many who have been 

defence, systematized, reenforced, and confident, to Petain." Encyclopcedia Britannica 
(i2th edition, vol. xxx), pp. 587-588. 

His third great service to France and to the world, the offensive in Lorraine to 
entrap the German Army and compel its surrender, was prevented by the signing of 
the Armistice on November 11, 1918. 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 299 

coughing and sneezing in my face, and now I am in for it, for at 
least two or three weeks, and I am afraid my poor old ears will 
suffer in the end, as anything the matter with my membranes always 
affects my ears. . . 

To-day I picked some flowers in the gardens, asters mostly, of many 
colors, and took them in the General's name (he is still away) to Fox 
Conner,^ who was operated on this morning for intestinal adhesions, 
and stoppage, just in time, by Peek of the Roosevelt unit, which is 
here by the way, assisted by, whom do you suppose but Bob's old 
friend Finney of Baltimore, who was called in from his unit, which is 
about 40 miles away. So you see we have good surgical friends at 
hand, and medical, too, for Russell and James are both here, too, with 
other medicos, and sixty perfectly good New York nurses, all of whom 
are helping take care of French wounded, who are coming in every few 
days. Fox Conner is a fine fellow and soldier, one of the best, and I 
am delighted that he is coming through all right. 

I am dying to hear where it is that the girls V. and P. are going to 
live in the South, and all your news from Yaphank. I see by the en- 
closed clipping of Northcliffe's fine article that Yaphank is already 
beginning to blossom like the rose and I suppose the mosquitoes will 
be gone before long. . . . Tell me all about it, and about your 
other things, and about the campaign for Mayor. Can Mitchel 
possibly get it? And what does Root say about the present phase of 
Russian Revolution. For my part I still have faith. And is there 
no chance of T. R.'s coming, after all? I suppose Leonard Wood can 
never come until Gen. Pershing is made a Lieut.-General, which 
ought to be at once. . . . 

"Still in the same place" is the heading of his letter of 
September 24th: 

The only thing I look forward to with any pleasure ... is 
talking to you, and if I could only put down all the nice things and the 
sad things that I think, you would be glad to hear them, I know, and 
to feel them with me, and to sympathize, but helas, I have not the pen 
of a ready writer as you know only too well and to your sorrow . . . 
Having felt the awful truth and portent of this war more deeply per- 
haps than any one else that I know, for three long years — I mean 
Americans, of course, I am conscious of a different sort of feeling now 
from that of most of my friends. I cannot express it, or explain it 
well, so I will not try — but here I am. . . . 



ipox Conner (1874- ). Graduated from West Point (1898); Lieutenant Colonel; 
Colonel; Brigadien-General, A.E.F., on General Pershing's Staff. 



300 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Friday, the 28th (Sept.). 

I had to stop the other day, and every day since I have wanted to 
talk to you, and for some reason there has been no letter from you, 
although big mails have come from America. I wonder if it is not 
better now to direct letters straight to me A. E. F., France, rather 
than send them to Morgan, Harjes? — 

Saturday, 29th. 

It is almost too cold to-night in my big room in the top of the house, 
and the fire, which I started in spite of the high price of wood, has gone 
out, but I must have a little word with you . . . before I get 
ready for another day. I am a little disappointed because Felix is 
leaving me for home. I do not blame him for having a touch of 
"cold feet" and an uncontrollable desire to go home. I feel the same 
way myself, but good old Felix cannot stand the gaflf, while I have made 
my bed and must lie on it. I like to think that the idea of noblesse 
oblige has something to do with it. The way of the next six months 
seems hard and long, and then what! . 

I love to think that you often long to have me back, and to re- 
dedicate our lives together to the remaining years of kindly and loving 
consideration. I shall think of you in ten days as saying "Darby 
dear, on our wedding day," and I shall drink your dear health. 

I am still pegging away, working as hard as I know how, and no one 
ever tried harder. The pace is beginning to tell a little, but I believe 
that I have got the best of my cold. The weather has been simply 
perfect, the most wonderful September days and nights, and I have 
been tempted even to ride for half an hour after breakfast every day 
for four days! What do you think of that, and I really think it has 
done me good, and has loosened a little my hold on the handlebars, 
as Root might say. 

I have ridden a different Army nag every day, but it has been the 
first little indulgence that I have known since the war. The war has 
changed everything for me. I am dimly conscious now that the old 
incentive and ambition of life — the good and legitimate ones I mean — 
the building always for the family, for the future, have all taken on a 
new meaning, and I find myself suddenly at the end of my life — at the 
end, at least, of the constructive, useful period — cut off and adrift in 
this maelstrom of world convulsion with you . . . left stranded 
and suffering alone on the shore of doubt and uncertainty. Oh for 10 
years more of life and love and companionship with you to gladden 
your heart, and to look back with you through the years, and to smile 
with you, dearest, even through the tears which we may find together, 
blessed tears, if they but hold us tight together. Still more blessed 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 301 

smiles of faith and sympathetic understanding if they re-awaken the 
sunshine of our lives in the fading years. I long for them all. . . . 
You ask me what of myself and if I am thin and worn? I think I am 
probably, and I am afraid you would think me very old. I will try 
to have a photograph taken for you by the official photographer of the 
Signal Corps, who makes ghastly caricatures but pretty true to life. 
I wish I could find time to write to the children. My heartas fullJof 
them and I have much to say, but every short^moment that I can find, 
I must write to you, although I end by saying nothing, so afraid am I 
to hint even at things that caution and fashion forbid. I may not 
speak of a thing that I do, and know it must be very unsatisfactory 
to you and to the boys and girls. Do give them my deepest love. 

In his letter of Sunday night, September 30th, he opens with 
a statement that he has never been so long without a letter from 
home, and the threat that. 

If it doesn't come to-morrow I shall cable again, for I must have 
news of you. I think of you now at Yaphank for to-morrow is the ist 
of October, and the boys must all be in their respective camps, unless 
by some unexpected chance of war they may have already started for 
this side. I do not know what to expect, although you said they were 
going to be instructors somewhere. There are a lot of young fellows 
gathering in France, after all sorts of positions and commissions, and 
I can't quite make up my mind just what I think is best for our boys. 
On the whole I think they are better off working out their own line 
with the new Army at home, and with their little families within 
reach than to be exiled over here even with the opportunity of study- 
ing and learning, within sound of the guns, as the two Roosevelt boys 
are doing. 

The long months of training ahead must be hard to face, but I can't 
help feeling, as I know you do, that the longer their separation from 
home is put off, the better. You and I can say this to ourselves 
strongly as I feel that our Army must get in and do its part, as soon as 
possible now that the nation is at war. You surely wonder what I am 
doing. I cannot tell you, but no bonne a tout f aire ever had more 
things to do, or worked any harder than I have for the last six weeks 
with every prospect of its being harder and harder, unless my job is 
given to some better man because I cannot make good. It is a God- 
send to have every minute taken up, but, as I told you, I have ridden 
a little these last mornings — an Army horse after breakfast, rather 
than before, as some of my friends do, although in this way I do not 
get to my desk before nine o'clock — pretty late and lazy, you will say 



302 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

— but the sunshine has been so fine that It has been worth it, and I am 
sure that Murphy will be sorry he didn't come, and now Felix is going 
to leave, and William and Gicquel, and Marie the cook are my only 
standbys. I don't know what I should do if either one should leave 
me as Felix has done — but I can't blame him. 

You ought to know Marie, the cook, a real treasure, who works in 
this big house, helping thefetmne de menage in every possible way, and 
seeming to have my interests really at heart, and doing her best for 
all the rest — seven in all now, as one Major has gone away. But tell 
me of the boys and Sister and the little fellows. You must all be 
thinking of nothing but the Army, which I am sure is very much in 
evidence. I wish I could look in on you. What is the feeling about 
our part in the war? I see to-day that Mr. House^ is going to study 
peace! Would to God that he or any one else might bring about a 
just and lasting one! That is not possible until the world has imposed 
its terms by force upon the dastardly power of the Huns. Aren't the 
English splendid, and the wonderful French, and the poor, distracted 
Russians! 

Tell Root again that I share his note of Faith, if I read him right, 
in the new spirit of Russia. The throes of childbirth of a great new 
nation, and she may still be sick unto death, and succumb as most men 
think, but / do not believe it, and I am more confident than ever that 
after this dreadful winter, which is ahead of us, the force that America 
is going to throw into the balance is going positively to turn the scale 
and assist the winning of the war. If that be so, I am resigned to pay 
the awful price, even if it breaks my heart and yours, darling. No! 
after writing it, I deny it. I am not resigned. I resent it. I hate it. 
I cry out against it and against those who have brought us to the 
brink and saved our souls. . . . 

I read three papers every day and try to keep in touch with what is 
going on at home, the Herald^ Daily Mail, and Chicago Tribune, and I 
must say that the great change that has come over the nation is mar- 
vellous and satisfactory. How many, many times have I spoken of 
the dreadful price we must pay — of the slaughter and suffering and 
sacrifice which is going to be caused by our fatuous unwillingness to 



iThe reference Is to Edward Mandell House (1858- ), generally known as Colonel 
House. After the outbreak of the World War in 1914 he "visited the belligerent 
countries as the President's personal representative, conferring with the leading diplo- 
mats informally and advising American ambassadors of the President's attitude on 
various questions." [Encyclopadia Britannica, vol. xxxi (12th edition, 1922), p. 395]. 
After the entrance of the United States into the war, he represented his country at the 
Inter-Allied Conference in Paris, November, 1917, and also in the Supreme War 
Council at Versailles. A year later, he acted for the United States in negotiating the 
Armistice and was a member of President Wilson's Peace Commission. 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 303 

see the truth and prepare, and now the fact that some of us saw it 
clearly and understood it, and cried out in the wilderness is forgotten, 
and who will care. . . . 

I never write to any one but you — not even the children, and this I 
regret more than I can tell you, and you must tell them for me how 
many, many thoughts and deepest love and keenest interest I feel all 
through these dreadful days and weeks and months for them, and in 
everything that affects them. How I should like to be with them and 
live their lives and share their hopes and fears! I know much of 
their Innermost hearts and of their ambitions, and of their sometime 
doubts. Tell them this . . . and that this old fellow's heart is 
still young for them, and will give everything in the world to help and 
serve them, and that he craves their love and understanding. Could 
they write me, do you think, the things of themselves that I long to 
hear! . . . ' 

On "the morning after,** October ist, he had a delightful 
surprise: 

Just a minute more because it is raining and my horse did not come, 
but as I looked out the window I rubbed my eyes for there was an 
American Ambulance section going by to the front, and my heart was 
in my mouth, in a minute. I rushed out to stop them for a second, 
and it was No. 93, as the boy said — the old American Ambulance, now 
the U. S. S., and I gave a big gulp and still realized that I am emo- 
tionnhneme emu. . . . 

The boy who drove the ambulance just now recognized me and said 
that he had worked for me last year with "Christy" up in the Bronx, 
so I wanted to kiss him. 

Yesterday a Congressman named Parker of New York State, not 
Wayne Parker, who also was here, said to me (I did not remember 
him) "Bacon, I want to apologize to you," which rather surprised me, 
but he said that he and three other Congressmen of the State did more 
than any one else to defeat my nomination and now he was sorry and 
wanted to apologize. 

It may amuse Job Hedges if you see him confidentially, although 
it is a little late. I don't want to quote Mr. Parker generally for all 
that water has gone over the dam. 

I am off now to my busy day. It is lucky for me that they are all 
busy, as I could not bear it if I had time to think. . . . 

The next days were full to overflowing and did not give him 
the few minutes for a line to Mrs. Bacon, not even for a cable. 



304 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

7th Oct. 

It is Sunday again and I liave half an hour before dinner .... 
and I have wanted so to see you, to talk to you these last days, and to 
ask you if you still love me, and think of me kindly and not critically, 
as I perhaps deserve for going away to this awful war, and leaving you 
to fight it out alone. Somehow I don't think you would have had me 
not go if I could, in spite of my old age, and consequent uselessness as 
a soldier. What could I have done if I had remained at home ! . . . 
Do you think I could have made good at home in this war after all 
that I have said, all that I have criticized, these last three years? You 
see ... I am trying to justify myself in your eyes. I care for 
nothing else. If only I could feel that you know that I am doing 
right, that I did my duty as I saw it, and as many people think, I 
should be ten times less unhappy, ten times less dissatisfied, ten times 
more eff^ective in everything I do. 

I do try hard! I am so afraid all the time that my poor efforts are 
not considered successful that I am in a constant state of apprehen- 
sion and doubt. Is it because I am losing my judgment, or is it the 
exaggeration of life-long qualities that you know so well? I know 
in my heart that I am doing well, as well as any one could do — the 
little things, the exacting continuous round of unimportant things 
that I have to do from five when the Angelus finds me awake until 
bed time, with never a let-up. I know that I do it well, but I am not 
a soldier, and I long for a word, a sign and look of encouragment — for 
some evidence that all my world thinks highly of me. You know 
what an old fool I have always been . . . and now I am worse 
than ever, not in lack of confidence in myself and what I can do, but in 
craving for esteem and good opinion of everyone. I long for it, and 
you are the only one in the world to whom I can say it or who under- 
stands. Do you understand how weak I am and do you think the 
less of me ! This all sounds sort of morbid but it isn't, and my courage 
will hold out with only an occasional word of approval from you. . . . 
The loth is at hand and brings back sweet memories of 34 years of 
never-failing, true love and patient, kindly forbearance on your part, 
dear, blessed Heart. No man was ever more blessed, and now I 
have gene away in the hour of trial and have left you to fight it out 
alone! If you feel that it was my duty to stay, and that the call that 
took me away was mistaken, then I ought not to have come. Of 
course the boys' sacrifice and the price that their little wives and 
families are paying is in many ways the same, and there will be a mil- 
lion or more of others, but you will say that all are of conscriptable 
age, and their duty is manifest, hard as it is, but old Bacon is too 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 305 

old, and of no use at the front, that is the answer, and it is nothing but 
selfish vanity that induces him to go. . . . 

I am just up from dinner where we had a bottle of champagne, one 
bottle only for 10 men, which was all we had in the house to celebrate 
a great appointment, which came by cable to-day from Washington.^ 
You will be able to guess, and also the promotion of two brigadier- 
generals of the family. To-day has been a holiday for me, the first 
for two months, and I was glad to get out into the country from this 
crowded place, where my job is to put square pegs into round holes, 
and to add several quarts of water to a pail already brimful. 

It is storming to-night and winter is almost here by the feeling, but 
we are trying out our chauffage central— the only such luxury in the 
place. I lunched with a general to-day, who has many boys coming 
in the Army. I am most anxious to know what our boys will probably 
do, where and how long they will train, and what they want to do if 
there is any possible way I can help them know how to do it. Would 
any of them Hke to come over on a Staff position if it were possible? 
Tell them to study French hard every minute they have to spare. 
All my friends here are taking French lessons at great expense and 
trouble and regret more than anything else that they cannot speak or 
understand it. The superior officers are the ones who study hardest. 
I hope Professor Sabine of Harvard will call upon you. He is a 
splendid man and will tell you of a glimpse he had of me the other 
day. It is a perfectly hopeless feeling not to be able to write any of 
the many Httle things that I do or that the others do. It makes me 
think that it is not worth while writing except for my own small 
satisfaction and to relieve my overwrought thoughts. 

I am pleased to-day to have a new plaything — a saddle and bridle 
from Paris which George Munroe sent me, but the good weather has 
gone and I shall have very little time to ride the Army horses, which 
the orderlies can sometimes bring me ... I long to have you 
here in France, just to feel that you are here, and experiencing in a 
way the same things that I am so near to, breathing the same atmos- 
phere, but my better judgment seems to say that it is better for you 
and for your little brood that you should be there to help and en- 
courage and ward off danger, and protect and comfort those we love. 
You are wonderful . . . and you do so much for everyone and 
they all appreciate it now so deeply, more and more every day, and in 
all the loving care and sacrifice you are lavishing you are piling up 
precious legacies — priceless heritage that they will never forget, that 
they will never cease to love and reverence. This must be your 

'The appointment was General Pershing's to the rank of General, a grade in which 
he has had but four predecessors: Washington, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan. 



3o6 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

reward, and there can be no greater than the full consciousness of the 
inestimable benefactions which your dear soul is pouring out upon 
them. Never were greater, finer, purer gifts bestowed by Mother 
upon her loved ones. I can give you nothing but the love and un- 
bounded admiration and reverence of a lifetime which is the only 
thing that I have in the world. . . . 

October loth had come and gone out of his life, as it were. 
The dull, deadening routine of a Post Commandant absorbed 
him by day and troubled him by night, fearful as he was that 
he might not be performing its many duties as well as they 
should be done, or so well as someone else could do them. In 
any event, he was liberating "a real soldier," as Major Bacon 
would say, for "a soldier's job," by taking charge of the post. 
He did not think of this aspect of the case on Sunday night, 
October 2jst, when he wrote, 

This has been a day of varied emotions for me. . . . 

I have many hours of sadness and disappointment and a sense of 
failure for the first time in my life. In almost every other trial of 
strength and capacity and personal superiority I have won out but I 
am conscious of not having "put it over" so far, and I must confess 
it to you, although perhaps not tx) any one else, deeply as I feel it. 
Well ! Enough of that side of the medal.^ 

This morning at 5:30 I got up determined to take a half holiday and 
go out into the country to see the Zeppelins which had been re- 
ported down not far away. You will have read all about them in the 
papers by this time. It has been certainly a wonderful sight, and no 
words of mine can describe my (I was going to say "admiration," but 
I can't, I so despise the boche) for the workmanship and scientific 
construction. The great wounded leviathan lay there with his nose 
in the valley across a stream, and his mighty body and tail away up 
the hillside, and over the trees, fully 600 feet long, and 75 in diameter, 
as if the Lusitania were lying there. The four gondolas for the men 
and the engines and the explosives and the wireless and the manage- 
ment were models of exquisite workmanship — like a watch movement, 
and the enormous aluminum frame with its envelope, thin as paper, 
and the silk air chambers were all very impressiom^ant. The nineteen 

'General Pershing gives the other "side of the medal" in a letter of May i, 1918, in 
the course of which he said, " I take this occasion to express to you my earnest apprecia- 
tion of the whole-hearted way in which you have constantly perforrned every duty 
given you since our departure from New York last May. Your enthusiasm, your will- 
ingness and singleness of purpose are an example to all of us." 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 307 

men were held prisoners and prevented from destroying it by a rabbit 
hunter with a shot-gun, and near by, not many kilometers, were the 
remains of the engine's paraphernalia of another Zepp, which had risen 
again with four men (the rest, 16, having jumped out into trees and 
with parachutes. I saw the 16, of whom 2 were high ranking officers 
of the Navy, and was not sorry that they had come to grief and morti- 
fication). Two or three more are down to-day, out of the fleet of 
seven pirates who night before last killed and wounded many women 
and children at Scarborough. ^ They may all be down by this time, 
as evidently the whole bunch went astray for some reason in the fog. 
The country here is lovely, and my one relaxation is to ride for half an 
hour or so an hour before breakfast. At first I longed for my own 
horse, but now I don't care. I have only one real friend here, and with 
him I ride every morning. ... I am going to do better, see it 
through and be cheerful about it. All these soldiers are just as far 
away from their dear ones as I am. I first came to this town on July 
20th, and my being away on that day was the cause of much of the 
unfortunatedenouementofourAmerican Ambulance trouble. . . . 
Let us forget if we can all the late unpleasant part, and remember 
only the big and fine part of the last three years' work for French 
bleeding hearts and bodies ... I was so glad that they did not 
forget you in the decoration which France gave. Nothing is good 
enough for you — but to come back to me and this place. Do you 
know where I am ? You do not know the General of the Region, or 
the maire or the Majeur de Garrison^ or the Intendant and Chief of 
Police, and the leading citizens, all of whom I see daily, or the many, 
many popotes, or of the sanitation and defence, and the command of 
many troops, and departments of government, which has been given 
to me. The Commandant — but all these things are not to be re- 
peated from me. I cannot tell you what an interesting old town 
it is, or its history and tradition, or how I know more about it than 
any one else of the Army, or even how the people here like me and 
know that I like them, and have confidence in me although I say it 
who should not — but now I must go to bed to get warm, as my fire is 
out again . . . 



^On December i6, 1914, German cruisers put to sea and bombarded Scarborough, 
Hartlepool, and Whitby. This action gave rise to much discussion and comment. 
It was believed even in well-informed circles that the towns were not fortified and, 
therefore, that they were exempt from bombardment. The German cruisers withdrew 
without damage. 

On September 4, 1917, Scarborough was again shelled by a German submarine. 

Mr. Bacon apparently refers to a raid of Zeppelins on the east and northeast of 
England and on London, in which twenty-seven people were killed. On their return 
journey five of the raiders were brought down in France. 



3o8 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Wednesday, 24th. 

I am ashamed of my stupid little letters to you . . . but when 
I sit down to write, I seem to think that I must not say a word of what 
I am doing, although in the daytime I am constantly thinking aloud 
to you all sorts of things that at the moment seem to be perfectly 
harmless from the point of view of the Censor. There have been great 
promotions in the family, here at this mess I mean, two new generals 
and three new colonels, so that Captain P. is the only Captain left, 
and he is in the hospital, and I the only one else below rank of Colonel. 
General A., too, is sick in bed and General M. at the hospital, and Col. 
F. C. [Fox Conner] just recovering from an operation, and Col. P. 
absent on sick leave, but officers and men are coming in every few 
days and the town is as full as an egg already, so you must try to 
imagine how it is piling on to poor old me, for if you will look up the 
Army Regulations on the duties of Post Commander, and then add 
about 50 per cent, new additional responsibilities, plus those of liaison 
with the French, interpreter and general handy man, you will begin to 
have some idea of what I am conscientiously trying to do from six in 
the morning till bed-time — every human endeavor and activity. 
I know that I am doing it as well as it can be done under the circum- 
stances, but I also know that no one else knows it. As I told my 
friend Col. S. [Simonds] at lunch to-day, he and I being left alone, all I 
want is an occasional kind word, and I don't care how hard I have to 
delve, but kind words are scarce in the Army, and every man must 
look after himself, and every one is surmene with more than he can 
possibly get away with from one week end to another. I keep up my 
riding with McCoy who, as you know, is a perfect corker. I am crazy 
about him. He and I and Col. H. and Col. W,, an Englishman, had a 
good one to-day over wonderful hills and grass, with glorious autumn 
colors, browns, dull reds and yellows, almost like a dogwood, and 
dark patches of Christmas trees — miles and miles, if we like, in every 
direction. 

I am just called away to the telephone to be told that a Zeppelin 
has been reported far off, coming this way, but I do not believe it. 
The French seem to have made a splendid advance on the Chemin des 
Dames to-day. ... I suppose winter will settle down pretty 
soon now, and stop everything. . . . By the way, I have been 
thinking of late that it would amuse me to have Hereford try to collect 
some material for a memoir of myself, for myself and perhaps by my- 
self of the last 40 years. It is just 40 years now since my first years in 
Cambridge, and I am old enough now to begin to take an interest, 
senile perhaps, but quite keen and egoistic in the retrospect of good 
and bad, and I am looking for a Boswell, although I am ashamed even 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 309 

to say it. Seriously I should like to have Hereford give much of his 
time, if he will, and out of newspapers and things and the mouths and 
possibly pens of a few real friends — there are only a few — scrape 
together something for my old age. Hooper and Trimble might hand 
him a few plain truths of the early days, and the decade of panics and 
struggle from '84 to '94, and the next wonderful decade of construc- 
tive period with J. P., and the next of contact with public men and 
things of which much could be discovered. I wonder if you could not 
persuade Mr. Hutchings to carry along the little story of Daniel Car- 
penter through the life of William B. [aeon, the father] for whom he 
had a high appreciation, and with the help of that brilliant wit, good 
old Hayward, who might set down a few things pleasant and interest- 
ing for me to remember. 

Hereford might then take up the running with my utterly unworthy 
self and thus piece out a picture of 100 years, certainly of activity, 
which might one day, say 30 or 40 years hence, amuse Benny and his 
father, or Bob or Elliot and their boys and girls, or little Dor and 
Robert and their sweet mother, who would have then furnished new 
links for the family chain. I hope you don't think that I am in my 
dotage, but I am quite serious about it now that I write it down, and I 
am sure that good Jamesie Scott would think aloud a little of the last 
decade and Job Hedges himself might inspire a few lines on my 
lamentable failure. 

I don't know how Hereford is going to occupy his time, now that the 
Ambulance work has gone out of our lives . . . but I wish you 
would ask him to undertake this colossal literary work as a profes- 
sional duty, and see what he says, when he realizes that I am not 
joking. Give my love too to Jamesie and to Roosevelt and to Root 
and to old Col. Harvey and to good little Dwight Morrow.^ Those 
men understand now my obsession of the last three years. Davy, 
of course, appreciates now more than he did two or three years ago 
how I felt and suffered. It seems to me now sometimes as if the 
period of exaltation had passed or changed. No one, I think, quite 
understands my point of view, and my condition of these years of war. 
I seem to have been almost alone, and now the professional approach 
of many of my friends is not the same as my sympathy and almost 
anguish and shame of waiting. 

And now the nation is really on fire, is really the beginning of that 
nation of which I have dreamt, for which I feared, and which saved 

'Dwight Whitney Morrow (1873- ). Member of the firm of J. P. Morgan & 
Company (July, 1914- ), Adviser to the Allied Maritime Transport Council (Febru- 
ary-December, 191 8), awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1919 by General 
Pershing "for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished service in connection with 
military shipping matters and the Military Board of Allied Supply." 



3IO ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

itself by such a narrow squeak in spite of itself, in spite of its leaders. 
We have become a nation with one bound, and I believe we will endure 
as a nation, which we would not have done had we not come into this 
war. The price will be dreadful — We must pay, some of us must pay 
dearly the awful price, but the soul of the nation will be tested in the 
crucible and you and I ... the atoms, will be forgotten, though 
we may pay the price that the nation may live. . . . 

Major Bacon speaks of his guests in his letter of November 
6th, the next in the series, 

It is late to-night . . . and gone are all the guests, "gros 
Bonnets" they were too, high up in the military hierarchy, whose 
names I dare not mention, but yesterday we had here a party in many 
automobiles, i8 in all, congressmen and their secretaries, and I'm glad 
they came because they will know a httle better and can explain what 
it is all about to the folks back home. Oh! the dear folks back home! 
How I long to see them ! At last your letters came and your cable, and 
I felt not quite so far away, and you told what I wanted to know, a little 
about yourself and the bairns and I had a nice letter from Sister, too. 
Tell her I loved it, and am hungry for more. The photos of the babes 
were fine. How they are all growing old. Little Elliot and little, big 
Robert (what do you all call him?) are already real persons whom I 
don't know, and your report of Benny and little G. and the little girls 
at Chattanooga all thrilled me with interest. I can just see dear 
blessed Ma ruffling her feathers, and protecting her chicks, and I love 
her and try to think of everything she may be doing. Wasn't it pretty 
sweet of McCoy to write you? He told me that he had and it 
touched me deeply, although I know not what he said. He is a per- 
fect dear, and I am crazy about him. Then came good Sir Walter 
Lawrence, and you must surely go yourself to see him wherever he is, 
as he is really splendid and besides has a scrawl from me to you and 
some cards which my good friend General W., the French General 
commanding, gave me. I have seen him, the General, every day now 
for about three months, all my daily duties are done with him d'accordy 
and he has been awfully amiable and accueillant. He has a baby two 
weeks old whom he has named Pierre John after General Pershing. 
He is of Alsace, which is not far from here. 

Of the advantage to the country of Major Bacon's prestige, 
and of his relations to General "W," Brigadier-General Frank 
McCoy writes,^ 

^Letter to Mrs. Bacon, October 15, 1920. 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 311 

From my first day In Paris, June, 1917, I renewed my old-time 
friendship and association, and I know how much his prestige and 
personaUty and knowledge of France and French helped us to nick in 
the strange environment for an American Headquarters. He was 
invaluable in smoothing over the natural friction in receiving into the 
MiHtary Service the many American organizations and enthusiastic 
war workers who had been more or less going it alone before we came 
into the war. This was particularly so in regard to the American 
Ambulance and the Ambulance Field Service. . . . 

The French Regional Commander General Wirbel was a very pep- 
pery old chap, whom I feared would be a standing stone to our smooth 
operations, but Colonel Bacon won him so completely as a friend and 
co-worker that our moving right into his headquarters resulted in the 
pleasantest and most sympathetic relations during the remainder of 
the war. Upon our arrival in Chaumont, when Colonel Bacon was 
made Headquarters Commandant, a great organization developed on 
broadest lines and without bother of the details of quarters, billeting, 
construction, etc., all of which he handled, and for six months to come, 
with great tact and ability. 

Major Bacon makes another attempt to tell what he is doing, 
but if Mrs. Bacon was not enlightened, her mind was relieved 
to learn that he had got the better of his cold although she 
might still be in the dark as to the details of the "job": 

I wonder if you have any idea of what I am trying to do. Well, I 
am trying to do everything for everybody, all the little things that 
nobody wants to do, and I am just going to peg away from morning 
till night till they drive me away — and I am well . . . really 
pretty well for an old wreck, and so far can stand as much as any one. 
I threw off an incipient cold much to my delight and the regular matu- 
tinal ride seems to be helpful. 

The rides which restored his health and kept him well were 
invariably with General McCoy, who thus writes of them; 

During this period we kept ourselves fit by riding before breakfast, 
and I don't think that he and I missed a day, rain, snow, or shine, until 
he left for British General Headquarters late in the winter. I must 
confess that I should not have been so regular at seven o'clock on 
those cold, raw mornings were it not for the fact that I knew he was 
sure to be on the dot. 



312 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

The valleys of the Marne and the Suize were delightful riding 
grounds, and we would come in for a hearty breakfast quite uplifted 
over the cross country and the charm of the hills and streams, and he 
with his eye for the picturesque soon discovered ways of coming up 
from the valleys to the town which would give us the best views of the 
old city with its Cathedral and the Haute Feuille tower of the 
Counts of Champagne, which was his particular delight and which 
he knew from every angle. 

November 7th was a red letter day. 

Did you ever know a small boy . . . away from home at 
boarding school for the first time, perhaps, homesick, but trying to 
keep a stiff upper lip and a brave face — often with a trembling lip and 
a wet eye, who when his first package arrived from home, pretended 
not to care much, but at the first opportunity rushed upstairs to his 
room, locked the door, opened his precious bundle, and broke down 
and cried like a child, and poured his heart out to his mother as he had 
never done before, and loved each separate thing that her dear hands 
had made and sent to him, the socks, the sweater, the belly-bands 
even for his cold winter, and the chocolate and the thoughtful sacchar- 
ine, and the gloves for his blue fingers. The boy never forgets those 
moments, and they stand out I am sure all his life and grow in grateful 
sweetness through the years. Well, this old boy is going through all 
the blessed sensations to-day even to the scalding tears, and is not 
ashamed. 

It isn't a sign of weakness, either, or senihty, for he was never better 
mentally, morally, or physically (for his age) — and full of good fight, but 
full, too, of the finer, softer things which make life worth living in spite 
of the pain, and which the boy but half understands till long after. 

Good-bye now . . . I just wanted a word with you after lunch 
and I must run. I shall try to send this by someone who may be 
going on the French ship. 

Ten days passed before Major Bacon could write again: 

It is a long time since I have written you . . . and why I don t 
know, for I think of you all the time, and all my little troubles, and 
worries, and doubts I want to pour out to you every day, but somehow 
I never have a moment. Never during the day, and at night I am 
pretty well done up lately, and do not seem to have the courage to sit 
up in this little cabinet de toilette where I am writing now, so generally 
drop into bed to keep warm, sleep pretty well till the small hours and 
then lie awake, and think and half dream till Gicquel comes in at 6.45. 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 313 

Your dear letters have come, and tell me all the things I long to 
hear. ^ I can see you at your parties distributing cake and ice cream to 
your eight hundred, but giving out your blessed self and all your love 
and sympathy to those homeless boys, priceless gifts which they will 
never forget. I should think they would appreciate it and you, for if 
ever there was a saint on earth it is you . . . but try, try not to 
use up all your strength. Do spare yourself a little for the sake of all 
of us who are so dependent upon you and your love. I am all excite- 
ment to see George^ who is surely coming over with Tom- — so I hear. 
When I received your cable about him, I could not imagine what he 
was coming for, and now I do not know, but I am tempted to try to 
keep him. There would be lots for him to do, and his ability and 
usefulness would soon be recognized and appreciated, and he would 
become a Staff officer. I feel sure he would get a commission if the 
Morgans would let him stay. I shall get him out here if I possibly 
can, for I cannot get away to Paris for even half a day. I wonder if 
any of the friends who have gone home from here have given you any 
idea of what I am doing, and what it means of hard, thankless, endless 
tasks — the "goat," in fact, of this centre of the A. E. F., but "he also 
served, etc.," and this is the only way now that I can do my bit. I 
am afraid that your headlines in the newspapers are giving you all 
false impressions. The Senators who were here this week, and with 
whom I spent two days, went home, I am sure, with a much clearer 
idea of the immensity of the task, which I am afraid the nation does 
not even yet appreciate. We went out to the training of the troops, 
and watched them in all their wonderful youth and vigor, and lis- 
tened to the ominous booming of the guns far away to the north out 
of reach. . . . 

I have a tiny, tiny house here with a tiny kitchen, three rooms and a 
bonne a tout f aire where I put any of my friends who need a bed, and 
as there is hardly a bed left in town, it may be of some use. George 
; will tell you all about me when he goes back. I shall fill him full of all 
the dope, which I have been afraid to write you, and I am looking 
forward to his visit with the greatest joy. I hope he doesn't hit upon 
the very same day as a large official party of twenty, of whom I read 
in the papers, and who will of course turn up here to add to my tribu- 
lations. 

This is a poor little hurried scrawl . . . in the hope of getting 
it off by a friend who is sailing to-morrow, or next day. I am begin- 
ning to think of you at Christmas and to wonder with all my loving 
sympathy. . . 

'George Whitney, Mr. Bacon's son-in-law. 

Thomas W. Lament, of the firm of J. P. Morgan & Company. 



314 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

The letter of November 25th is cheerful from beginning to 
end: 

My blessed Saint, 

Your wonderful little pacquets have come to-day, and yesterday 
six letters all at once, and I am full of all your news, and your love, 
and the dear atmosphere of home, and I am chuckling to myself over 
my ambro coca, and my Httle casserole, and I think I will wear the 
woolly tricot to bed it is so soft and warm, and Marie, that's the cook, 
says I ought to keep my stomach warm. 

And I am all of a twitter to-day because I am going to have a lunch 
party to-morrow at the Httle house, 4 rue du Palais, which little rue 
has been rue-ing since the loth Century, just as it is now. And who 
do you suppose is coming to lunch? I shall have a darn good bottle 
of Monton Rothschild to warm his fat stomach and a chicken and 
salad and a good cheese and an entremet and plenty of sugar in his 
coffee, and a good fire in the stove, and a warm welcome, and I shall 
hear all about you, Mother dear, and Sister and Dor, and fat Bob and 
the boys, and everybody, and now you can guess who is coming, for I 
won't tell you, but it's going to be a tete-a-tete^ and I don't see what I 
am going to send you by him for Christmas, for there is certainly 
nothing in this old place that you want, except this old feller and him 
I can't send you, bless your heart, and my heart will sink when 
George goes back without me. . . . 

Aren't the British fine up at Cambrai,^ and beyond Ypres these last 
days. Doesn't it make you tingle and choke and gulp to read about it, 
and dream of sweeping through with the cavalry and roUingup their old 
Hindenburg line for ever! and giving us back our good old world, which 
is cursed and all changed for ever by their wanton madness. Good old 
world — better perhaps for future generations after it has passed 
through this fiery furnace, but never the same again for you and 

me. . . . 

I have a Guest House too where the "White Feathers," \}i\& grosses 
legumes, tarry while here officially. Generals and Senators and 
Congressmen and Commissioners and sich, from time to time, and the 
nice widow, whom I have to run it, and her sister, bring me apples and 
fresh eggs from their modest -home twenty kilometres away— in fact 



iThe reference is to the Battle of Cambrai, which began toward the last of Novem- 
ber and ended with the counterstroke of the Germans in December. 

Sir Julian Byng (1862- ), Commander of the British Third Army, inaugurated 
a new era in trench warfare by the use of tanks in this battle, surprised the Germans, 
and pierced their lines. The British were unable to take advantage of their victory, 
however, because of the disaster of Caporetto, which caused British and French troops 
to be rushed to Italy. 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 315 

their nice old mother brings them in her basket. Oh, there are many 
sweet simple touching things below the deceptive surface. The peo- 
ple here are awfully nice to me, and appreciative of a little sympathy 
and understanding, and call me one of them. Add ais to the name 
you looked up on your map. That is what they say I am already, 
and I like the compliment — (Chaumont-ais) .... 

Three days later, November 28th, he writes from "The same 
place for I never move," 

A snowy raw winter's day, and up here all alone wrapped up in 
woolen, snuggled up to my Httie wood fire "thinking, Mother dear, of 
you, in my JDright and happy home so far away, and the tears they fill 
my eyes spite of all that I can do." I dined all alone to-night, for 
every one has gone away, to all sorts of places, but my little job keeps 
me here tugging from morning till night. I am an engineer among 
other things, and am hard at work erecting barracks. And who do 
you suppose is working for me? — but I mustn't say, and George will 
tell you. We had our little lunch party yesterday, and he went away 
to Paris, but he and Tom will come to see me again perhaps next week. 
I am full of excitement to-night, and do not expect to sleep a wink, 
for I have a secret wish, and almost hope, that I may be allowed to do 
something else. I am burning with impatience, for to-morrow to 
come, for I mean to speak of it to a friend of mine; I may be doomed to 
bitter disappointment, but my imagination is running wild to-night. 
The nuit^ even, may bring conseil, and I may not have the courage to 
ask for it, but my constructive job here is nearly finished, and al- 
though I shall be proud to stick to it, and run the show if they really 
want me, there are other things, entre nous, which appeal to me much 
more, and to-night I am full of youthful (God save the mark) ambi- 
tion. 

I think everyday of the boys' plans, and wonder what they are doing 
next. Their Camp must be over, and they may be at Fort Sill, or on 
their way over here from what you say. Will Bob come first, after 
all? Did Caspar's battery win the guidon? Are Ett's polaks licked 
into shape? And is Yaphank [Elliot's Camp] even worse than you 
feared as a winter resort? Did Benny [Caspar's boy] nearly jump 
out of his skin with excitement sleeping in G [aspar]'s tent? 

Tell me every little detail you can think of. George has told me 
much of his sweet wife and fat sons, and the little breath of home has 
been very tender and sweet and makes me hungrier than ever. Lizzie 
Reid^ has kindly written me to dine in Paris on Thanksgiving, but my 

'Mrs. Whitelaw Reid. 



3i6 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

turkey will be here with my one best friend.^ Did you ever get his 
letter? 

Tell the boys again from me to spend every spare minute studying 
French. I can't exaggerate the importance of it, or what a handicap 
it is to all these splendid Staff officers not to know it. They are all 
digging away at it like school boys and making great sacrifices in the 
hope of improving. Fit them out with Larousses and verbs and 
vocabularies and conversations, and above all teach them yourself 
whenever you are with them, how to pronounce and eyiunciate. Make 
them read aloud to themselves, Madame Metivet (I don't know how 
to spell it after all these years although I know her birthday!). The 
girls can be of greatest help if they realize the importance of it. They 
are all such good French scholars. " Void des fleurs — et void man 
coeur qui ne bat que pour vous^" my blessed Saint. The Mayor of this 
place, who is my intimate, and who has a nice little wife, and a son who 
has been prisonnier de guerre for over two years, flatters me by telling 
me that my French has improved a marveille since my arrival. At 
any rate I chatter all day and sometimes dream in French! I heard a 
woman singing " Te souviens tu" in much too fast time — much faster 
than we used to sing it — but my fire is nearly out and my little stock 
of thoughts too confused to make this letter worth reading, but they 
go out to you ... as does my poor old heart. . . . 

The next letter, dated December i8th, is very characteristic: 

Six dear welcome letters ... in two days. That is going 
some, and oh I was glad to get them. The "25th Nov." came first 
and two days after the "9th Nov.", and I suppose the same thing is 
happening to you, although I am very much afraid from what you say 
that some of my poor scrawls have gone astray, and never reached you 
at all. Mc[Coy] got your letter too to-day and was mighty pleased 
as I knew he would be and kept saying how glad he was that he had 
written. He is really one of the very sweetest and finest in the land, 
and I can never express or repay what he has been to me in my days of 
discouragement. Strictly between you and me ... to have 
done something and to have been somebody, especially an Ambassa- 
dor to France, has been a real handicap to me,^ but I don't mind it a 



^General McCoy. 

''"Col. Bacon accompanied General Tasker Bliss on his visit to Flanders, at a time 
when American visitors were especially welcome as first signs of the fast-arriving 
A. E. F. All that was left of 'Free Belgium' was a Httle triangle of territory between 
the Yser and the French frontier — every acre of which was under fire from the German 
batteries around Ostend. Two direct hits had been made on the buildings of the 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 317 

bit, and am perfectly content to peg away at my little unprofessional 
things from daylight to dark, with no hope of recognition or promo- 
tion or anything like that, if only I can serve and if I can get a smile or 
a sympathetic word now and then. I love to work and never put 
more into my work than I have done these last six months. ... I 
would not do other than lie in the bed that I have deliberately made, 
and I am proud to be here, and consider it a privilege to serve in any 
capacity. You know that I always said that I would like to serve in 
the ranks. If I had succeeded in going to the Senate it would have 
perhaps been a fine ending, and I regret it more and more, especially 
when I realize that the people of New York now know that they would 
rather have had me. I might never have come to France masquerad- 
ing as a soldier, although my foolish and rather Quixotic crusading 
spirit might have still led me over here. . . . But when all is said 
and done, and searching my innermost soul, I would rather be one of 
the stars in your proud service flag than anything in the world, and 
there is no reward which I seek — no reward so great as the knowledge 
and conviction that you are proud and pleased in your anguish. . . . 
Here everything is growing and expanding and improving wonder- 
fully! I have greater and greater admiration for and confidence in 
this little Army, and its traditions, and its organization, and its ef- 
ficiency. 

Nothing could be finer than the unselfish devotion of its Chief, and 
of its General Staflf. Je m incline! Their precept and example are 
beyond all praise, and it is an honor and privilege to be with them, 
and in their confidence. Xmas will be here again in a few days, and I 
kiss your dear eyes, wet I know with tears for the days when we were 
all together. It will be a sad one too for me and for us all. I shall 

G. H. Q. a few hours before. Nothing, however, was allowed to interfere with the 
traditions of Belgian hospitality, and every formality of a long official luncheon was 
remorselessly gone through with, in spite of the visitor's desire to see more of the 
Nieuport front. All the Belgian officers were much impressed with the fact that an 
American Secretary of State should be acting as Aide to an officer even of General 
Bliss's high rank. 'You Americans seem able to do anything a I' improviste' said one 
of them (not without a sly reference to their own Ministers at Le Havre!). They were 
even more surprised when I told them that he had served as a private and sergeant at 
Plattsburg long before attaining his present rank. Colonel Bacon, himself, was quite 
impatient of any reference to his position before putting on khaki. 

"It was part of my official duties to present General Bliss to King Albert, and I ven- 
tured to suggest that His Majesty would doubtless like to meet a former Cabinet 
Officer at the same time. It was characteristic of the Colonel that in spite of his 
natural desire to meet the famous Chief of the Belgian Army he absolutely forbade me 
to suggest any plan which might interfere with the arrangements made for General 
Bliss's private audience." Extract of letter of May 7, 1922, from W. Penn Cresson, 
Captain, M.I.O.R.C, formerly Chief of the American Military Mission, Belgian 
G.H Q. to Mr. Scott. 



31 8 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

do what little I can for the children hereabouts and you will be my 
inspiration. 

We are to have a Xmas tree at the Y. M. C. A. hut, which is just 
across the road from my barracks where my command is growing 
bigger and bigger. A tree for the children of Chaumont, and there 
will be a Santa Claus and lots of little things such as you would revel 
in. ^' II fait sifroid dans leurs foyers deserts" for ''La neige tombe et 
la terre esttoutegelee" and the bocheisover there holding, holding hard, 
but ''nous verrons" and the world will be free. 

I simply eat up all your news of yourself and the children, and am 
crazy about all the wonderful things you send me. I am really foolish 
about them. . . . 

In a letter of December a2nd, Major Bacon announces the 
advent of his great and good friend, Bishop Brent, ^ who was 
to share his little house with him, in Chaumont, and to occupy 
it after Major Bacon had been detailed to other and more 
important duties. 

Pretty near Xmas, . . . and this is the time when, as Bishop 
Brent said this evening at the Y. M. C. A. "the bars of distance are 
transformed into bands of union". . . . I suppose you will be a 
Tittle jealous when you hear that the Bishop is staying here with us 
for a day, and that I lunched and dined with him, and had an hour or 
two tete-a-tete with him this evening. He is splendid as usual, and 
to-morrow he is off to spend Xmas with his Canadians in the trenches. 
I sort of wish I could go, too, for there in the British front is much of 
my heart, and I am more than ever convinced that for the future of 
the world the absolute union of the English-speaking people is neces- 
sary. Remember what I have preached to unbelieving ears these 
last four winters! 

We are to have a Xmas dinner en famille and three of our family, 
who have left us, will come back, the "gunner," Captain Epatant, and 
Schally all from their schools. How I wish I were young enough and 
intelligent enough to be sent to school, but all the world goes away to 
their different callings, and I stay here wearing my hair shirt, and 
trying to get comfort out of the thought that I am inconspicuously 
helping someone else to do something and be somebody. I am too old 
and too handicapped by having done something in the past to be called 

^Charles Henry Brent (1862- ), Protestant Episcopal Bishop of the Phihppine 
Islands (1901), Bishop of Western New York since 1918. On May 28, 1918, he be- 
came Head Chaplain of the American Expeditionary Forces, and for his services in this 
connection received the Distinguished Service Medal. 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 319 

upon to do much of anything more. But I hold on first of all to my 
sense of humor and to some courage, which I take in both hands, and 
the days go by. Your wonderful presents have all come— two more 
bundles of welcome white socks and so much to eat that I come up 
here to my room and stuff, much to the detriment of my figure. What 
did you think of my Xmas present to you with all the shadows and 
wrinkles washed out from around the eyes.? I thought it might amuse 
you and that you would like the book of Bouchor about whom George 
will tell you. I am waiting now to hear of George's arrival, although 
I don't know what ship he took. I hope he will take home an impres- 
sion of this place and of my life here, which I do not seem to be able to 
tell you anything about. His flying visit though was hardly long 
enough to get an idea of the tremendous work which is going on here 
in this old town, where International events took place long ago and 
where now a marble slab in the Hotel de Ville commemorates the 
coming of Americans, and where the ladies, "God bless 'em," have 
presented a wonderful flag of silk to the C, in C. . . . 

International events had indeed taken place long ago, "in 
this old town, "as Major Bacon put it. They were many and 
important, but for present purposes only one may be noted. 
The conclusion of the treaty of Chaumont on March i, 1814, 
between Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, by which 
the august monarchs of those countries, in person or by their 
representatives severally bound themselves not to make a 
separate peace with Napoleon, then on his last legs and at bay 
in France, and to continue the war until that devoted country 
was reduced to the limits of 1792, in which year the war of the 
French Revolution began. 

There is, at the landing of the first flight of stairs of the build- 
ing which partially replaces an older structure in 6 rue Bouch- 
ardon, a stained glass window representing the signing of this 
treaty on March 9, 18 14, with figures of Francis, Emperor of 
Austria; Frederick William, King of Prussia; Alexander I, 
Czar of Russia; Castlereagh, Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs, representing the Prince Regent of Great Britain, the 
soul of the coalition and resistance to Napoleon, and figures of 
Metternich of Austria, Nesselrode of Russia, Hardenburg and 
William von Humboldt of Prussia. 

The Americans were in Chaumont for the purpose, among 
others, of restoring France to its limits of 1870, before the rape 



320 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

of Alsace-Lorraine by Prussia, as a consequence of the war of 
that year with France, forced on that unfortunate country by 
the fraud and forgery of Bismarck. 

Another point worth noting is that the treaty of Chaumont 
was the first step to the League which posterity has con- 
temptuously called "The Holy Alliance," and it provided for 
congresses or conferences of the Powers, which were to settle 
and keep settled "the prescriptions of right," which the victors 
of 1815 imposed upon the nations of Europe. 

So much for one of the "international events" which Major 
Bacon had in mind. The newer building has a personal in- 
terest for his admirers, for in it he, upon his own initiative and 
at his own expense, installed the Interallied Military Circle or 
Club, in their large and comfortable quarters. 

Major Bacon barely mentions the Club in his letters. Among 
his papers there was found a letter from the French General, 
commanding the 21st "Region," addressed to him when Com- 
mandant of Chaumont. It tells part of the story: 

Personal 

General Wirbel, Commander of the 21st Region, to Major Bacon, 
Chief of General Headquarters of the American Expeditionary 
Force. 
My dear Commandant: 

The Interallied Military Club is constituted to-day. 

In the nameof the officers of the Garrison of Chaumont it is my duty 
to state precisely the great part which you had in its foundation. 

The Club is, in truth, your personal work. 

In spite of numerous difficulties, you have preserved a place for it 
ever since your arrival. 

Finally, with a discretion which has astounded me beyond measure, 
you secured, from your own resources, the money for the equipment, 
which is as comfortable as it is elegant. 

Then, with a thought which will touch the hearts of all your French 
comrades, you desired that this equipment be later returned to the 
Garrison as a souvenir of the passage of the American General Head- 
quarters. 

Permit me, then, my dear Commandant, to express to you the 
warmest thanks and the most cordial gratitude of the Allied officers, 
and in particular of the French officers. Your generous initiative will 
permit them to form among themselves the affectionate relations of 
comradeship so useful to our common cause. 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 321 

We should all have been pleased to confer the presidency of the 
Club upon you. It is your right. But I must bow before the delicate 
reasons of your refusal. However, your name will not be the less 
revered in the Club of Chaumont. Yours will ever be a living 
memory there. 

Accept, I pray you, my dear Commandant, the expression of my 
deep sympathy and sincere friendship. H. Wirbel. 

The rest of the story is told by General McCoy: 

Amongst the side issues which meant much for the friendly relations 
between the French and American officers, was his instigating and 
organizing the Franco-American Club, which, with his usual modesty 
and generosity, he largely effected through me, including the outfitting 
of some fine old rooms in the most historic house in town. 

In a letter of January 9, 191 8, there is a reference to the Club, 
which Major Bacon attributes to Mrs. Bacon's inspiration, 
and dedicated to her: 

This clipping account of your Club will interest you and I don't 
mind saying that it is a pretty good Club, and very much appreciated 
by pretty much everyone here. The historic room [in which the 
treaty was apparently signed], which is the principal salon, adds to its 
interest as a Foyer Inter-Allie, and the big logs in the big old chimney 
with new green curtains and green covered fauteui/s and cafiape, and 
a big table would appeal to you I am sure . . . who are the in- 
spiration of it all. 

Then again your "Sanitary train" is still going strong for the 
French wounded, manned by American doctors, and still rolling all 
over France, well-known as the Train Sanitaire de I'Ambulance 
Americaine, equipped and maintained by Mrs. Robert Bacon, and the 
other day when there was urgent need to evacuate an American 
Hospital, and the American Army train broke down, the request was 
made of the French to lend your train to the American Army, so there 
have been many American sick as well as thousands of French 
wounded whom you have helped and will continue to help and relieve 
of their suffering. . . . 

The last letter of the year 1917 and the first of the year 191 8: 

Midnight, 1917-1918. 

For the clocks are striking . . . and the New Year is coming 
in, and how can I begin it so well as with just a word of blessed love 



322 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

to you? Another year, and we are all hoping, praying that it may be 
brighter, finer, more elevating than any of its predecessors — for if we 
don't wish and hope and try for that — there is nothing, in spite of 
trials which may be in store for us, if our souls cannot rise above fear 
and apprehension, even pain and anguish and agony if need be then 
we are not so worthy, and if our steel is to be tempered in the crucible 
of suffering and sacrifice and survives then it will be true steel, and 
mine are not forebodings. My heart is quieter, calmer, perhaps 
stouter, though I say it who should not, than ever before, and this with 
full and sympathetic knowledge of everything you feel. 

There has never been a time in our full forty years, my blessed 
Saint, when I was any surer of our perfect oneness of thought and 
understanding, you and I, and for me it is very tender and sweet, and 
I know that there is nothing that we do not share in common. I love 
to feel that you feel just as I do about it all— that I feel just as you do. 

My motor trucks are working outside my window in the snow all 
through the night, unloading freight cars to relieve the encombrement 
which always threatens, and the tasks multiply and the obstacles are 
harder to overcome, and the unfamiliar methods, and one fervent wish 
of mine for the New Year is that I may prove equal to my small tasks 
and make good. 

Good-night, my sweetest Mother — May God bless and keep you 
and bring peace to your troubled heart. . . . 

Jan. 6th, 1918. 

My heart is very full to-night. . . ! Overflowing with emotion 
and pride, for I have been promoted to a full Colonel, and the eagles 
have been already pinned on my haughty shoulders! What do you 
think of that! And I wasn't able even to thank the General prop- 
erly, so nearly did I come to breaking down and crying like a child. 
You cannot know what it means to me to-day, and I cannot begin to 
tell you for I never suspected it, or thought it possible for a moment, 
and after the last six months of real work, and of doubt as to whether 
they thought that I was making good, although I was putting every- 
thing I had left in me into every day, when suddenly to-day at 5 
o'clock — out of a clear sky I found that they had thought I had been 
doing well what I had to do, and I was sent for by the C. of S. and all 
unsuspecting was asked if I could stand a shock — then he shook hands 
with me and called me Colonel, and told me that the General had 
made me one of his personal A. D. C, and had assigned me to a special 
important post and duty, as his personal representative. Well, you 
can just see me. . . . You who know so well my failings and 
weakness and my sentiment — foolish perhaps. I was speechless. I 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 323 

am ordered away from here, this nice old town, and this big official 
family, of whom I have grown very fond — whose every want I have 
tried my best to help satisfy, and I confess that I go out into the 
world again with a pang of regret for the trying work which has been 
my life, and which I was just beginning to feel that I had well in hand. 
It has been in a sense local, however, but of the greatest value to me, 
and now I am off to a bigger field — International in fact, and you will 
remember what I have thought and said, these last years and months, 
as to what I considered the most important phase of this war for us, 
and for the future of the world, in fact for the winning of the war, 
perhaps you will guess what my job is to be, I expect to live some- 
where in the neighborhood of where I lived in the spring of 1915, and 
I am to be the Senior officer of the job. The best of it all is that it 
could not have been thought of or done in a nicer way, and I consider 
it the greatest honor that could have been done me. The General 
is certainly the sweetest thing, with all his iron discipline and apparent 
disregard of personal considerations and of sentiment. I wish you 
could sometime get hold of that cunning boy of his, who is living with 
his Aunt in Nebraska. You remember I told you that I saw him in 
Washington in May. Madame Joffre, by the way, sent him a full uni- 
form — perfect in every detail, sword and all, of a Marechal de France. 
If you ever run across him, you will be crazy about him. Well . . . 
I am bubbling over like an old goose to-night, but withal I am con- 
scious of a deep sense of the seriousness and importance, and the 
possibihties of my new job. 

You must think of me for weeks — perhaps months, if I make good, 
in an entirely different atmosphere, and one of which it will be even 
more difficult for me to speak to you than it has been, but I will try 
to get to you somehow some idea of what I am doing. Most of my 
old friends of the early days of the war will have gone, but there will 
be new ones, and everyone will be most hospitable and kind and 
accueillant I am sure. So much for old me. The photographs of the 
boys . . . gave me a real thrill of pleasure and emotion. What 
of them all? . . . Are they coming over here? It breaks my 
heart to think that I may not know it or see them, or even know 
where they are when they do come, but I will find out somehow, if you 
will send me all the news you can, and I will find some excuse to see 
them. Trust me for that— for from time to time I shall get away for 
a few hours, and if I can only keep the Rolls Royce going, I may get to 
Paris, or even out here for a minute. But William's feet and his 
courage gave out the other day and he says he must go home, so what 
I shall do for a driver I don't know. I have been on foot now for a 
month but it has done me good. To-day I had a marvellous ride of an 
hour and a half, just before sunset in the snow with my little sym- 



324 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

pathetic friend Mc [Coy], who is just back from a visit to his old 
General. You know who.^ 

This has been a big day for me, and I feel a little as I felt when you 
and I went down the Avenue with the babes in 1 894, sort of broken 
away from the moormgs and adrift again to make my way on life's 
dark sea, what there is of it left, but I seem to be just as keen as I was 
twenty-five years ago, just as anxious to do the right thing and to 
succeed in the little things that I have to do. My one great regret is 
not to have you at my side, to pour into your dear sympathetic and 
understanding ears my longings and hopes and fears — you, who have 
always been and now more than ever are the mainstay and strength 
of us all. Ce quest le lierre sans roi'tneaux, qui jut Fappui de toute sa vie — 
voila ce que je suis sans toi. . . . My heart turns to you every 
day, in every moment of joy and sorrow, and I worship the ground you 
walk upon, and see you and keep you on a pinnacle, which grows 
higher every day and week and year. If appreciation of what you 
are and what you do is any recompense for a ?nens conscia recti, you 
would feel partly repaid. Tell this to the boys and girls and see what 
they say. 

I do not know quite what to say about my addres'' out I should say 
that Col. R. B., A. E. F. % M. H. & Co., Paris, or M. G. & Co., 
London, depending upon whether it is coming by a British or French 
ship would be forwarded to me at the right place. Good-night, my 
Saint. . . 

Three days later, on January 9th, Colonel Bacon is to reverse 
the proverb, "planning to get off with the old love before 
getting on with the new." 

My time is getting short ... for on Saturday I am planning 
to pack up and start off in compliance with the enclosed order, to 
proceed to British G. H. Q., and my successor Lt. Col. B.^ has arrived, 
and is installed in this house, and in my office, and I am doing my 
best to explain all the details of my past life and duties of the past six 
months. I am sort of pleased and gratified that everyone seems to 
know that I have had a hard job, and they are all so cordial and ap- 
preciative in their congratulations on my eagles and my new job 
that I am more than rewarded for everything that I have tried to do. 
I am leaving them with a certain feehng of regret, but B. who will go on 
with it is a splendid officer, and will "carry on" much better than I 



'Major General Leonard Wood. 
^Lieutenant Colonel Conrad A. Babcock. 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 2^-5 

could, so I must be content, and I am proud, as I told you, to be 
ordered on to my new job. My one thought all the time is of you and 
the boys, and of my apparent helplessness to do anything for them and 
to lessen your anxiety. If they would only do as you suggest and 
accept Staff positions for which they are so well fitted, I have said 
to them all that their usefulness and opportunity for service would be 
greater, but they have all felt impelled by a sense of duty and fiol?/esse 
oblige to go in for the real thing in the line. 

The boys took after the father, whose ambition it was to be 
in the line, and to "go over the top," as appears from the 
beautiful letter which Colonel Babcock, his successor, wrote 
many months later, October i8, 1919, to Mrs. Bacon, upon his 
return to America: 

Although I am entirely unknown to you, may I send you this short 
letter of sympathy? 

In January, 191 8, I relieved your husband as Military Commander 
of Chaumont, vi^en he was appointed liaison officer at British Head- 
quarters in France. 

My respect and admiration for him were instantaneous, and during 
the year and a half following, when I saw him frequently, we became, I 
hope, real friends. 

No member of the American Expeditionary Force had a finer spirit 
than Colonel Bacon, nor set a higher example of soldierly qualities. 
His generous and unknown acts of kindness and assistance to our 
Army did much toward the care of the wounded and sick, and the 
maintenance of a high standard of morale. 

Later when I commanded an infantry regiment. Colonel Bacon 
asked me several times to let him go "over the top" with an infantry 
platoon. 

This was, of course, a responsibility I dared not take, but when a 
man like Colonel Bacon sets such an example, is it any wonder that 
our men did their duty in France? 

Colonel Babcock refers to Colonel Bacon's "generous and 
unknown acts of kindness," mentioning particularly "the care 
of the wounded." Two instances may be appropriately noted, 
one referring to "the care of the wounded," the other an un- 
known act which would have remained unknown if the little let- 
ter recounting it had not been found among a bundle of Colonel 
Bacon's papers, and in the handwriting of the beneficiary. 



326 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

The 'first is only one of many, and not more typical. It is 
recounted by the late Mr. Walter H. Page, then American 
Ambassador to Great Britain, in a letter dated December i, 
1917, to the late Major General Thomas H. Barry, United 
States Army: 

Dear General: — 

As you will doubtless see Major Bacon shortly, I send you this 
account of an anecdote which I know will be of interest to his family 
and be appreciated by him. 

On September i8th last at the "Grand Headquarters General" of 
the Belgian Army at Socx I met the Countess Von Steen de Jehay, 
director of the I'Hospital Elizabeth a Poperinghe and on the 20th, 
upon her invitation, I visited the "Hospital" in the city, now largely 
destroyed by intermittent shell fire, and also the place to which its 
main work has been removed, some four miles outside. 

In showing me around, she asked if I knew a Mr. Bacon. I asked 
if she meant the Major Bacon, ex-Ambassador to France, and she said 
"Yes" and added: 

"I shall never forget him. It was like this: It was some time 
since but there was a time when all the operadons of our hospital were 
on the point of being abandoned for lack of funds and I was in despair. 
At this time appeared before me a tall, handsome man who said: 
'Madame, can I not do something for you?' to which I replied, 'No, 
nothing because,' she explained, 'the world seems to be absolutely 
without hope.' 

"He went away for a few minutes and then returned and handed me 
a check of $5,000. When I saw it," she said, " I could hardly believe 
my eyes. It seemed to restore the roof of heaven. It came as the 
gift of an angel. I shall never forget him. It enabled our work to go 
on as you see it is now proceeding to do." 

I went through the hospital, which seems to do work collateral to 
that of the Red Cross in taking care of civilians who have been gassed 
or injured by shells. The administration of the hospital under the 
directorship of the Countess, who says she is called the "Old Major," 
is wonderfully efficient. 

If you see Major Bacon please give him my regards. 

Yours sincerely, 

(Signed) W. H. Page. 

The second incident is likewise one of many: 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 327 

Chaumont, December i, 1917. 
The Commandant, 

American Headquarters. 

Pardon me, sir, for the liberty I take in writing to you. Permit me, 
sir, to send you fifty francs in order to place a wreath on the grave of 
the little American soldier who died far away from his country coming 
to the aid of France. I did not myself dare to carry it there, else I 
should already have done so. Do not refuse, sir, the humble offering 
of a French woman who loves America above all things; who in mem- 
ory of those dear dead, who have died for their country is proud and 
happy to offer a wreath to the American soldier who died far away 
from his mother, in order to come to the assistance of the children of 
France. 

I shall always remember, sir, that you gave me permission to set up 
a little stand opposite the barracks. Thank you, sir. I beg you, sir, 
not to refuse to place a wreath for this little soldier. I believe it will 
bring happiness to my husband. I do not dare do it myself. 

Thanking you, sir, accept my sincere good wishes for America and 
for France. 

Marguerite Gilly. 

But to return to Colonel Bacon's letter of January 9th: 

Who has been staying with us for several days but . . . Bishop 
Brent, who has consented to come here to us as Chaplain of the Head- 
quarters. Isn't that fine, bless his heart, and with him has been one 
of the nicest men I have met in many a day. Bishop Gwynn of the 
British Army, who has been with them since the early days of the war, 
and who has invited me to come and stop with him up there in North- 
ern France where I am going, and you bet I will. I shall see Cummins 
and Thresher and perhaps some other of my old friends, who, strange 
as it is, seem to like me, and I like to be liked as you know, so I am 
trying to "cheer up and be gay," and to look upon the brighter side, 
although its oh, so hard. 

You are pretty cunning to send me all those wonderful things, and I 
am the envy of all the young men in my office. The boxes from 
Charles, the chocolates, and the bully white warm socks, and now the 
undershirts and the helmet and the scarf, and the tricots, all of which 
I wear and revel in. I am trying to hold on to William but I am 
afraid I shall lose him, as his feet have given out, and now Gicquel, 
who was much touched by your sweet thought of him, too, for Xmas, 
may have to go to take care of his wife who seems to be ill and all 
gone to pieces moralement, which apparently means something 



328 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

" cerebrale." And what shall I do in the north in my new household! 
Marie, the cook, pleads to be allowed to go with me, and valet me, 
but I cannot take her away from here. I wish Murphy had come, 
for I believe that I have bought a horse and what I shall do with him 
without Murphy I do not know, but he wouldn't be happy here, and 
probably couldn't stand it any better than Felix and William have, so 
I must paddle along alone. . . . 

Colonel Bacon's promotion and detail, which gave him such 
merited satisfaction, and such consolation to his family for his 
absence from home, occupy but a few lines. 

Special Orders, No. 6, of January 6, 191 8: 

15. Major Robert Bacon, Quartermaster Corps, U. S. R., is ap- 
pointed and announced as Colonel, Aide-de-Camp to General John J. 
Pershing, U. S, Army. 
Special Orders, No. 8, of January 8, 191 8: 

18. Colonel Robert Bacon, A. D. C, will proceed to the British 
General Headquarters, for duty as Chief of the American Military 
Mission with the British Expeditionary Forces, with station in the city 
in which those headquarters are located. 

The travel directed is necessary in the military service. 

On January 13th, Colonel Bacon is in Paris, getting ready 
for the Northern post, and he writes on that date, 

73 rue de Varenne, Jan. 13, '18. 

A new chapter seems to be beginning for me and here I am back in 
Paris after five months of the closest concentration on my job "out 
there," and just about to start out again, this time to the North as I 

told you in my letter from C Gicquel and I and two soldiers, one 

my secretary. Corporal Gerard, and my "striked" Austin, who is also 
going to take care of my horse, if I succeed in taking him with me 
later. . . . 

I am hoping still that I can keep Gicquel. I don't know what I 
shall do without him, if he is obliged to stay in Paris to soigner and 
surveiller his wife. Oh I wish I could soigner mine — dear, brave, 
patient wonderful soul, who soigners everybody else but her dear self. 
I must confess I am rather pleased and proud of my five galloons 
coming as they did with a post of personal confidence, after these 
doubtful months of trial and apprenticeship, and Chef de Mission 
sounds rather grand after the daily drudgery and inconspicuous tasks 



POST COMMANDANT AT CHAUMONT 329 

of my last "place." My life seems to be cutting up like pieces of 
pie, quite distinct from each other. I must off now for a busy day, 
having just seen the General off by the early morning train. I have 
two short days to get ready for the North, not in the same town where 
I used to be, but near by. . . . 

But things did not go as planned. Colonel Bacon is still in 
Paris on the i6th: 

Waiting impatiently for my car, which is to take me out into the 
world up into the North. 

I am having many contretem-ps. William has finally left me with a 
broken-down Rolls Royce, and my other car, a little Schneider, is also 
en panne where I have been living at C. 

They have promised me a military car to take me on to-day, but it 
doesn't seem to come! The Rolls Royce will follow in a few days, if 
it can be repaired, and Gicquel and Austin will come by train with all 
my worldly goods. I am taking Corporal Gerard with me, all the 
papers, pcrmis^ laissez passers, ordj-es de transport, sauf -conduits y 
cartes d'identites etc., etc., having been arranged. My only other 
thick uniform has been sent to C, and to-day I am sending a French- 
man after it, as I must need more than one. I don't know what I 
shall do if Gicquel has to leave me too. His son, 19, is just off to his 
depot to train for nearly a year before going in. He is of the class 
dix-neuj. . . . 

We had a congenial party Sunday night at Alex' Hotel de France et 
Choiseul — Alex and Nelly, Leonard Wood and his Aide, Harry Stim- 
son, Jim Perkins, Harvey Gushing, and I showed them photos of my 
sons and boasted about them. 

General Bell, the other day, was full of your praise, and said you 
had been a "tower of strength" as you always are to everybody. 

Good-bye now, Honey, I must finish my packing. Think of me 
among nice new friends up there. . . . 

Things righted themselves and he got away on the 17th. 
The sojourn at Chaumont was one of great personal anxiety 
and official responsibility. He took "his job" seriously and 
he wrote of it seriously. Still, there were lighter moments 
which he would have recounted if he had been able. Fortu- 
nately, General McCoy has done so: 

But in spite of the hard and harrowing work as Headquarters Com- 
mandant, these evenings with old friends and the best of company 



330 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

brought back his boyish enjoyment and a proper relaxation from war 
strain. 

I remember one celebration on the conferring of the Fourragere^ on 
De Chambrun's regiment and unbeknownst to De Chambrun had the 
Fourragere for himself brought on in the soup bowl at a dinner where 
Colonel Bacon presided with even more unusual charm. After pin- 
ning the Fourragere on De Chambrun and drinking his health, Bacon 
led in singing the Marseillaise, Madelon, Malbrouk s'en va-t-en guerre, 
etc. and let out that charming voice of his with the sparkle of his 
spirit. De Chambrun then brought in his orderly, and decorated 
him, and we all drank his health, which so affected the old poilu that he 
wept. 

Another famous dinner . . . was our Thanksgiving one, when 
we gathered in various of the younger soldiers from the "hedges and 
byways" including an attempt to round up Ted and Archie Roosevelt 
and Dick Derby, but without success due to a lost motor car. Bacon 
was the life of that dinner which involved considerable excitement, 
as in an endeavor to give the field soldiers a hot bath before dinner, 
the French automatic heater blew up and made it seem like front 
line work for awhile. . . . 

Before the winter was over he knew nearly everybody in town, and 
all the children, old poilus and market women, and even the hags with 
faggots on their backs, knew him by sight and smile. He had, of 
course, a fondness for the fascinating French children and a particular 
affection for the Httle children of General Wirbel where we dined and 
called together. . . . 

He came in one night very much affected by a visit from an old 
French market woman who brought to him a very grand wreath 
bought with her month's savings, for the first American soldier's grave, 
which she felt she must charge herself with for the soldier buried so 
far away from his own mother. 

When he left to go to British General Headquarters it was not only 
our own pang that was evident, but the townspeople and the French 
authorities all showed it deeply. . . . 



iThe insignia of cord and tassel worn over the left shoulder by members of a regi- 
ment which has been signalled out for gallantry in action. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Chief of Mission at British General Headquarters 

Colonel Bacon was ordered to "the city in which" the 
British headquarters were located. At that time it was 
Montreuil, and the American Mission was installed in a dingy- 
little building, No. 22, Gambetta Place, just opposite the Hotel 
de Ville. The inn of the place. Hotel de France, was not pre- 
possessing outwardly, but its proprietor was a kindly person, 
the rooms were small but far from bad, and the food was really 
good and well cooked. Montreuil lay on the way to Boulogne 
and Napoleon had graced the little hotel with his presence, 
and had slept or tried to, in one of the rooms which the landlord 
points out to visitors and prospective guests. 

Here in the North. 
January 22, 1918. 

It is a whole week since I wrote you from Paris . . . waiting 
on my way, and here have I been four or five days, still in a stuffy 
little cold room, for I have not yet found a house, and poor old Gicquel 
and I are impatient to start housekeeping. My office, "The Ameri- 
can Mission," as it says on the door in large letters such as are used 
in G. H, Q.^ is not yet very grand. Captain Q., the Liaison Officer of the 
last six months, who is a brick, by the way, and is staying on to help 
me, having presided there with a single clerk and an orderly, and now 
that I have arrived with my corporal and his typewriter, we are trying 
to get another room. There is a really good officers' club here, where 
I started in to mess, but the Intelligence Mess has kindly taken me in 
with Quekemeyer and they are the finest lot of fellows you can imag- 
ine, and awfully cordial and kind to an old outsider, so that already 
I feel at home so to speak . . . Golly, it's been cold, but the last 
few days it is quite springlike and soft, and pretty soon it will be 
February and then March with the lengthening days of spring, and its 
perhaps vital consequences. All too soon will it all be upon us. I 
wish I could tell you freely and fully how wonderful I believe my op- 
portunity here to be, how far-reaching and solemn the big questions 

331 



232 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

and problems which must be decided and worked out by the leaders 
of the two greatest nations in the world, the English-speaking peoples, 
upon whose close community of interest and loyal union in this sacred 
cause depends the future of our civilization. Here, near the battle- 
fields of Crecy and Agincourt the Anglo-Saxon has come back, not to 
attack and despoil, but to help the noble and gallant sons and daugh- 
ters of the fair land, hurl back the invader, the ruthless Hun and bar- 
barian as Charles Martel hurled them back or similar hordes, at the 
head of this great little nation of Franks, over a thousand years ago. 
This is all a dreamland. Right here, on this spot as I write, d'Arta- 
gnan must have tarried on his way, and if I take the little chateau which 
has been suggested for me in the neighborhood, I shall wonder and 
wonder what knights and faire laidies lived and loved and passed this 
way. . . . 

My ink gave out here, so I crawled into bed, and to-day is the 23d 
and nearly dinner time, in my office. They have taken me into such 
a nice mess, the head of which is a great man, with a great name (the 
same as my other English friend, who went to America). He is per- 
fectly splendid, and my heart goes out to him for he has lost his only 
two sons in the war. His is a great family tradition, and he has a 
great role to play. 

I see no chance of beginning housekeeping, but I am not sorry at the 
delay, the opportunity is so good to meet these men! I lay awake 
long this morning, when the cock was crowing, and the Angelus ring- 
ing, and dreamed dreams and talked to you of the supreme importance 
and meaning of this moment and longed to be a chevalier, sans peur 
and sans reproche. 

In a letter from London, February 19th, Mr. Edward Gren- 
fell of the firm of Morgan and Grenfell wrote to Colonel 
Bacon: 

You may be sure that we are delighted to hear our G. H. Q. had 
really annexed you. I know such a job will please you personally and 
that is a great thing, but it is much more important that the right man 
should get in the right place. 

Ally and Entente are very fine words but in the working together 
there are endless difficulties. The boche may be short of lubricating 
oil for his engines, but the 3 Allies in France want a very superior sort 
of material to grease the wheels of the various staffs. The difference 
of language with the French and of manners between all 3 are very real 
difficulties, and I know no one like you ... to make Pershing and 
Haig see each other's viewpoints. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 233 

The men with whom he associated, and was to meet daily until 
the end of the war, were splendid types of British manhood. 

The head of the mess to whom Colonel Bacon refers was 
General Sir Herbert A. Lawrence, Chief of Staff of the British 
Armies in France, a son of Lord Lawrence, Viceroy of India, 
and nephew of the heroic Sir Henry Lawrence, also of Indian 
fame. Colonel Bacon's admiration for the General was 
reciprocated by that officer, who, being assured by Mr. Mor- 
gan that he would not be considered as "guilty of an unwarrant- 
able intrusion," wrote to Mrs. Bacon in these terms, after 
learning of Colonel Bacon's death: 

I met Colonel Bacon in France early in 191 8, soon after I had been 
appointed Chief of Staff to the British Armies in France, and I was 
privileged to see much of him during that eventful year. 

I confess that it was with some surprise that I realized that the man 
who had held the highest positions in the political world, who had 
been the Ambassador in Paris of the United States of America was 
contented to serve as a simple Colonel in the Armies of his country. 

But I did not know Robert Bacon as I think I learned to know him 
later, nor did I realize how his passionate love for his country made 
any work in her service acceptable. 

I wish I could make clear the inestimable service which he rendered 
to the Allied cause by acting as head of the Mission attached to our 
Headquarters. His high character and splendid enthusiasm inspired 
all with whom he came in contact while his great experience made him 
a guide to whom all of us instinctively turned. 

I can say that few men whom I have met, have left a deeper impres- 
sion upon me than he has done. 

He has given his life to his country just as much as if he had actually 
fallen on the field of battle, and I can assure you that his memory 
will long be cherished by the British Army. 

Such a letter, later confirmed by Field Marshal Sir Douglas 
Haig, Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in France, will 
cause one to discount Colonel Bacon's misgivings as to his 
fitness for the post to which he was assigned. 

From now on the centre of Colonel Bacon's activity was 
Montreuil, in which city the British Headquarters were located 
after their transfer from Saint-Omer. As head of the American 
Mission he was constantly and necessarily in daily and hourly 



334 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

contact with the British General Staff. He was, of course, in 
constant touch with American Headquarters in Chaumont as 
his purpose was to serve as intermediary between the two 
armies and to see to it by whatever ordinary or extraordinary 
means at his disposal to transmit all information of importance 
from one army to the other, so that as far as possible Marshal 
Haig and General Pershing should communicate man to man, 
eye to eye, ear to ear. This was the function of a haison 
officer. In the opinion of persons chiefly concerned and best 
able to judge. Marshal Haig and General Pershing, Colonel 
Bacon was a success, to such a degree, indeed, that Sir Douglas 
Haig requested that he be retained and placed upon his personal 
staff when General Pershing, according to precedent, had to 
replace Colonel Bacon by an officer of higher rank. It is well 
to dwell upon this at the very beginning, to prevent the mis- 
understanding which might result from the perusal of Colonel 
Bacon's letters. 

The official correspondence between Marshal Haig and 
General Pershing tells the story as does the expression of each 
after the Armistice as to the value of Colonel Bacon's services 
in this phase of the war. The first document is Special Orders, 
No. 121, of May i, 1918: 

51. Brigadier General W. W. Harts, National Army, will, in addi- 
tion to his other duties, assume the duties of Chief of the American 
Mission, British General Headquarters, relieving Major Robert 
Bacon, Quartermaster R. C. Upon being thus relieved Major Bacon 
will proceed to Langres, France, reporting upon arrival to the Com- 
mandant of the Schools for the purpose of taking the next course at 
the Army General Staff College. 

The travel directed is necessary in the military service. 

The next document is a personal letter from General Pershing 
of the same date as Special Orders. It was unnecessary to do 
this, nor was it customary, as the purely official orders are the 
ordinary method of communication in the Army. 

My dear Colonel Bacon: 

I have given this day orders to relieve yourself. Colonels Collins, 
and Shallenberger from duty on my personal staff. 

The coming of a Corps Headquarters to the vicinity of the British 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. ^35 

G. H. Q. with the presence of General Harts commanding the En- 
gineer Troops renders unnecessary the maintenance of a separate 
office there for the work which you have efficiently performed to my 
satisfaction since you were detailed as an A. D. C. It is my intention 
to detail General Harts to take over the work of the American Mission 
at British Headquarters in addition to his other duties. 

I take this occasion to express to you my earnest appreciation of the 
whole-hearted way in which you have constantly performed every 
duty given you since our departure from New York last May. Your 
enthusiasm, your willingness and singleness of purpose are an example 
to all of us. 

I have given orders that you be accorded the privilege of a term at 
the Staff College which will bring you more in touch with the work of 
the Staff in general and will open for you a new opportunity for in- 
creased usefulness. 

With best wishes for your future, I remain. 

Very sincerely yours, 

(Sgd) John J. Pershing, 
General, U. S. Army. 

The Special Orders in so far as Colonel Bacon was concerned 
were thus amended on May 7, 191 8, by Special Orders, No. 
127: 

35. So much of paragraph 51, Special Orders No. 121, c. s., these 
Headquarters, as directs Major Robert Bacon, Quartermaster Reserve 
Corps, to proceed to Langres, France, for the purpose of taking course 
at the Army General Staff College, is amended so as to direct him to 
report to the Commanding General, American Troops with the 
British Expeditionary Forces, for duty with the American Mission, 
British General Headquarters. 

The fourth document is an undated letter to General Pershing 
from Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, Commander-in-Chief of 
the British Armies in France: 

My dear General: — 

I beg to thank you for your letter of May 7th, and I note that it is 
your intention to combine the office of the American Mission and the 
Commanding General of American Units serving with the British 
Expeditionary Forces. I consider that this arrangement should work 
very well until American divisions are grouped into an Army Corps. 
When that takes place I presume that the Commanding General will 



336 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

have to be relieved of the work of the Mission. This, however, is not 
likely to take place for some months, and the arrangement you pro- 
pose will, in the meantime, be quite satisfactory. I shall be glad to 
receive General William W. Harts as the Chief of the American Mis- 
sion. 

As regards Colonel Bacon, I am very glad to learn of your decision 
to leave him on duty at my Headquarters. In view of the large 
number of American troops which will shortly be operating with the 
British forces, I suggest that it will be advantageous to attach him 
to my personal staff as my personal liaison officer with American 
Units in the British Area. In my dealings with the French and 
Belgian Units operating in close touch with my troops, I have found 
the presence of a French and Belgian Liaison Officer attached to my 
Personal Staff of very great value. I therefore hope that you will 
agree to Colonel Bacon being attached to my Personal Staff in the 
same way. 

With kind regards, believe me, 

Yours very truly, 

D. Haig^ 

The fifth document is a letter from General Pershing to 
Marshal Haig, under date of May i6, 191 8: 

My dear Sir Douglas: 

In answer to your letter of recent date, I have directed Brigadier 
General William W. Harts to present himself to your Headquarters 
as Chief of the American Mission there. As such, I would like to 
have him, in addition to his other duties, control all detached units, 
such as Engineer, Hospital, and Aviation, serving with the British 
Expeditionary Forces. It was never intended, however, that General 
Harts should have control over the American division serving with 
your forces. I am glad that this plan is satisfactory to you. 

As regards Major Bacon, I shall be very glad to attach him to your 
personal staff as your personal liaison officer with American units in 

i"I subsequently had the opportunity on several occasions to enjoy the cordial 
hospitality which Colonel Bacon extended to every American officer passing through 
the British G.H.Q. The part he played there, as Chief of the American Military 
Mission, and subsequently when attached to Marshal Haig was beyond all praise. 
Through his wonderful personality he became invaluable both as a channel of intimate 
communication between the British High Command and our own, and (if I may so 
express myself) as a sample 'type' of everything an American 'officer and gentle- 
man' ought to be." Extract of letter of May 7, 1922, from W. Penn Cresson, Captain, 
M.I.O.R.C, formerly Chief of the American Military Mission, Belgian G. H. Q., to 
Mr. Scott. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 337 

the British area, and am issuing instructions that he report to you for 
such duty. 

With highest personal and official esteem, believe me. 

Sincerely yours, 

John J. Pershing. 

The sixth document is dated May 31, 191 8: 

Special Orders, No. 151. 

12, Major Robert Bacon, Quartermaster R. C, is relieved from duty 
with the American Military Mission, British G. H. Q., and is attached 
to the Staff of the Commander-in-Chief, British Expeditionary Forces. 

The further statements will conclude the matter as far as 
these two officers are concerned. 

In Field Marshal Haig's official despatch: 

My thanks are due to Lieut. -Colonel Robert Bacon, who as Chief of 
the American Mission attached to my Headquarters has been able to 
give me advice and assistance of the greatest value on many occa- 
sions.^ 

In a personal letter under date of June 29, 1919, Field 
Marshal Sir Douglas Haig said of Colonel Bacon: 

He made for himself quite an important position at my Headquar- 
ters, and he was greatly respected and loved by all my Staff. We 
treated him quite as one of ourselves, and indeed I had no military 
secrets to conceal from him. . . . 

I shall never forget what Robert Bacon did to help me during the 
last year of the war. 

And General Pershing's opinion is expressly, formally, and 
unequivocally stated in the following: 

Citation for Distinguished Service Medal. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Bacon, U. S. A. 

For exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services. He 
served with great credit and distinction as Post Commandant of Gen- 

^Despatch from Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig to the Secretary of State for War, 
April 10, 1919. Fourth Supplement to the London Gazette of Tuesday, April 8, 1919, 

p. 4712. 



338 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

eral Headquarters and as Aide-de-Camp to the Commander-in-Chief. 
By his untiring efforts as Chief of the American Mission at British 
jGeneral Headquarters, he has performed with marked ability in- 
1 numerable duties requiring great tact and address. 

Another witness may be cited, a comrade in arms and an 
associate, who, like General Ireland, was unable to take leave 
of Colonel Bacon without a line in writing. This officer was 
General Simonds, and his letter, like that of General Ireland, 
on a previous occasion, is given in full : 

'My dear Colonel Bacon: 

I was quite disappointed not to see you and have a talk with you 
before leaving the British front. 

Our service there must always hold a conspicuous place in the his- 
tory of the war, and must be considered on the whole as contributing 
in a marked way to the great result — and consequently as a success. 
And you and I had the good fortune to have a prominent part in it. 

To you personally I wish to express my gratitude and deep apprecia- 
tion of the many kindnesses to me, and the efficiency of your constant 
efforts to help. To me you have also been an example of the highest 
type of patriotism and American citizenship, and I insist upon telling 
you so. 

The friendship I have formed I consider one of the things of life 
to be most highly prized, and I hope that our association may be 
continued in the years to come. 

Come and see the 2nd Corps when you can. We always have a 
place for you. 

Sincerely yours, 

George S. Simonds. 
Brig.-Genl. G. S. 

Now for the new chapter. Colonel Bacon's doings in this new 
and greatest phase of his military service are told in a series of 
letters in which he unbares his soul to Mrs. Bacon and chronicles 
betimes those failures and shortcomings which none but he 
observed and none but he had the heart to put in writing. 
His testimony is interesting, but the case has been made up and 
decided by his superiors and associates without his testimony. 

The first of the series of letters of the new life after a few 
purely formal ones is that of February ist, which begins and 
breaks off with the introduction : 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 339 

I cannot speak to you of the big things here which thrill me with 
their tremendous importance, so I will prattle on of the little things 
that are of no importance except as poor little links between you and 
me. I got back from Paris only yesterday where I passed three days 
waiting most of the time for my Chief, but the result was most satis- 
factory and interesting and important. I try to get a little relaxation 
here by riding my new horse, a big thoroughbred once owned and 
raced by Willie Vanderbilt, which I bought, however, for about $150. 
Since FeHx and William left me I have had nothing but bad luck with 
my cars. I cabled you to ask Alex. Cochran to let me have another 
Rolls Royce, which I hope he will do, as I very much want it for my 
Chief. Tell him if you can get word to him that I shall consider it the 
greatest favour he can do me. 

Colonel Bacon was interrupted so many times that he could 
not get at it again until Sunday, the 3rd, so that "this mean 
little letter has not gone yet!" 

I didn't tell you about Bishop Brent, did I? I lunched with him 
yesterday, not so awfully far from here in a nice old town where I 
passed many weeks in 191 5 with my friends of the R. A. M. C. 

The dear Bishop is finer than ever, and right in his element amongst 
the Tommies away out in the trenches. You can just see him, can't 
you ? I am very proud that he is going to live in my house out there at 
[Chaumont]. G. H. Q. A. E. F. Did I tell you? I call it now the 
"Bishop's House" and it repays me for keeping it many months 
without much occupation. George will tell you that he and I lunched 
there. The little woman who was there has gone, but I have another 
all ready for the Bishop, Madame Miot, a nice old party with a little 
girl of 12 and an invalid husband who lives at home, not at No. 4 rue 
du Palais, which, by the way, is my number. The Bishop will be 
Chaplain of G. H. Q., and an inspiration to everybody of course. 

I have found a wonderful house about 3 miles outside this old 
walled town [Montreuil], which I hope to persuade the proprietaire 
to let me have for at least 4 months. He is an ancient Major with 
six children — 4 sons in the army and two sons-in-law, and Gicquel and 
I visited the house yesterday and we think it is ideal, although I should 
have preferred to be in town, but you can see the basse-cour and the 
remise and tYi^ferme across the Etang. I am full of my new toy, if I 
get it. It will give me some spare rooms for invites, and something to 
play with. My horse who was dead lame yesterday, having picked up 
a nail, is going to be all right I think, so you see the luck is coming my 
way, and I am just starting for Paris, although it is five o'clock and I 



340 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

shall not arrive before eleven only to return to-morrow morning. The 
day to day duties try to crowd out the thoughts, and we live on from 
day to day. 

Your cable about the boys going to Fort Sill reached me here all 
right, and your letter of the 23d came after Sister's letter of the 3d 
Jan'y, so I never can tell what to expect. 

Two days later, on the 5th, after his Paris outing: 

I am weary to-night and homesick and with just a little of the 
" Kaffir," if that's the way you spell it. That is a great soldier's slang 
for "the blues"— but I ought not to be to-day, for everything that I 
am here for is most satisfactory and to-day and the last few days 
ought to be red letter days in history. Enough to say that what I 
have set my heart on, and what I consider to be perhaps the most 
important thing in all the world is coming about, and growing every 

day. . . . 

I am beginning to get to know a lot of men here and they are a fine 
lot. I have just had a line from my friend Cummins, who is in Italy 
and longing to get back to his Irish Division. I wish he were here. 
Col. Thresher has been most cordial and helpful. I hear that little 
Gen'l O'D [onnel] who was my D.G.M.S. in 1914-15 has been re- 
lieved for age, having gone back to India. I prattle on with my httle 
local news, which seems so trivial. I am taking the house in the 
country but only for two months, because the good people want to 
come back for Paques with their grandchildren and far be it from me 
to deranger them any more than I can help, but I don't know what I 
shall do then. There is a fine big chateau that has been suggested by 
important people, but I am afraid it is too big and far away from this 
place unless we grow tremendously, and even then it would probably 
be (for) others, not me, but nous verrons. 

In the meantime we have only three rooms, Quek and I, and last 
night two of our colonels came and Quek slept on the floor in my room 
and the Uttle oil stove that I brought with me on behind the Rolls 
Royce did good service for a colonel who had Quek's room. Papers! 
always papers! come over my desk all day long. . . . 

Of course he means the meeting of British and American 
officers; the cooperation of their respective armies in the field 
against a common enemy which he felt to be a first step to 
the rapprochement of the English-speaking peoples. One of 
the reasons, indeed the principal one, for having a large and 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 341 

commodious house, was to put up American officers who hap- 
pened to pass his way and to bring them into contact with their 
British brothers or vice-versa. Otherwise, the house was of 
httle use to Colonel Bacon. It was a sleeping place which he 
reached ordinarily after dark and left early in the morning with- 
out time to become acquainted with the garden, much less to 
wander through the beautiful woods. It was a source of regret 
to the people who owned the property that Colonel Bacon 
never had a chance to enjoy it, and that they themselves hardly 
learned to know him, so hurried and so irregular were his visits. 
Many a night he worked late in Montreuil and put up at the 
little Hotel de France. As a matter of fact, Major Froissart — 
for that was the owner's name — was so charmed with the Ameri- 
can Colonel whom he had admired from the distance as Ameri- 
can Ambassador, that he let him have the house as long as he 
wanted it, which was as long as the war lasted, and Colonel 
Bacon had more than a personal need for it. His quarters in 
Montreuil were not over-spacious and he was sometimes at his 
wits' ends to house at all the passing stranger of note or little 
note. 

On February 6th he writes: 

Your sweet sad letter written on Xmas Day, wrings my heart. The 
picture of your lonely little home bereft of all your dear ones is almost 
too much for me to bear, and the great gulps came into my throat 
to-day when I read about it, for only to-day did your two letters of 
Xmas time reach me several days after the one of January loth so you 
see how irregular the mails are on this side. . . . The day must 
have been indeed doleful with not a scrap of joyousness! And for 
you too . . . who have brought so much joy and gladness and 
happiness to every one on that day. God grant that we may all be 
together in the coming Xmas days! Do you remember a Xmas Day 
in Washington, 1908 — when I read in the morning in the dining room a 
beautiful little piece from the paper about what all our thoughts and 
hearts should feel and do for Mother . . . who has given her all, 
her whole life to us all! I have often thought of that little scene in 
1 6th St., and of her sweet confusion and embarrassment, and of my 
own emotion as I read it. Oh! if we could only give the best of us at 
all times. You do, . . . but I am always putting my worst foot 
forward, and appearing to think and feel things that are in fact ab- 
solutely foreign to my best self I am alone again to-night, for Quek 
has gone to Paris to fetch a Major-General, and one that you know 



342 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

well too. Mahoney, that is our British orderly, has piled up a good 
fire, so I am not going to bed yet. 

I sneaked off for a long ride after lunch to-day in the sunshine, which 
is almost springlike, and got back at four o'clock for four hours' work 
before dinner at 8 -.i 5. Then comes as a rule two hours more from 9:30 
to 11:30 when more "papers" and reading matter come in and the 
telephone on my desk rings. I invited McCoy on the long distance 
phone yesterday to come and make me a visit. He is only about 
500 kilometers away. I hope others will come too, for it will be my 
job and my intense desire to bring just as many Americans as possible 
to this part of the world. 

The news about the boys is very gratifying. How splendidly they 
are doing, as, of course, I knew they would. I shall be eager to hear 
from Fort Sill. It will be a great opportunity to learn, and make a 
record which will count, and I cannot wait to hear what assignment 
they are given after the course at that school. I suppose the girls 
cannot very well go with them, as they have to Columbia where they 
seem to have been so happy. I want so much to hear what our 
Brigade-Major is likely to do.^ I am terribly proud of them all and 
wish I had the faculty and the time to write them what I feel. 

I wish this old star on your flag could be as worthy of you as they, 
the others, will all be. But the old star is beginning to set, and his 
greatest ambition, after doing some useful work over here is to bring 
his old heart and head home and lay them at your feet and on your 
dear shoulder. 

Three days later he received a letter from home and was 
astonished as any member of the Expeditionary Forces would 
have been to have received it so promptly. This was Mrs. 
Bacon's first letter after hearing of his promotion of January 
6th. It warmed the cockles of his heart, as he would say, and 
inspired his pen. This is the letter he wrote in reply: 

I was perfectly delighted to get your letter of Jan. 24th last night 
. . . and much surprised, for just think of it, only two weeks or 16 
days on the way, whereas it generally takes at least 4 weeks. It made 
me feel not quite so far away. So you are pleased that I have been 
made a Colonel! I knew you would be, although I don't agree with 
all the things you say about it. 

You always were prejudiced . . . and I haven't the implicit 



iThe reference is to his son, Robert. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 343 

confidence in your judgment in this matter that I have on all other 
subjects. However, I am pleased too, and, as you say, it is most 
congenial to be here, and / think the most important thing in the 
world just now! I lay awake last night talking to you about it all, 
and my friends the clock chimes on the old, old Church, and the Coq 
Gaulois outside my window seemed to be symbols of the undying 
faith and of the hope and vigor of this old nation, but the message 
that I seem to hear is the S. O. S. call of our Motherland from whom 
we have been more or less estranged through the last 100 years, calling 
upon us to come back and help save the world, and our common ideals 
and birthright. God grant that we may have a quick appreciation of 
the momentous task, and of our honorable obligations and en- 
lightened self-interest. America is awake at last! What you say of 
the lack of equipment is true, and heartbreaking, but this was inevit- 
able because of our lack of vision and preparation. 

This was what I shouted as loud as I could for three years, but no 
one would listen. Now we must pay, as it was known we would have 
to, but your reports of the wonderful spirit and quality of our Na- 
tional Army fill me with pride and hope, and I quote you everywhere. 

February 9th, Colonel Bacon actually found time to write 
two letters: the first out of a joyous heart, the second while 
waiting to be off to Paris and Chaumont: 

Just another word while I am waiting . . . waiting impa- 
tiently, as I have been all day, for a "paper," which I am taking with 
me to Paris, and then on to C, and back again to-morrow or Monday, 
and the day is slipping away and we are losing all the sunshine and 
will have to go after dark, Gicquel and I, for he is going with me to 
make some ''courses" in Paris for our housekeeping which begins, I 
hope, next week, if the coal and wood and ravitaillement are all in. 

The house was part of an old chapel before the Revolution, but it is 
all built over and has some modern conveniences. . . . 

The nice lady of the house came down from Paris yesterday, and 
lighted the calorifere, and is fussing about trying to find me someone 
tofaire la cuisine^ and a.femme de menage from the pays^ and there is a 
place for the horse and the Rolls Royce, and a nice garden and a farm- 
yard and a gardener's wife and four small children, and if only you 
could be there with me it would be ideal. I will find out just how 
strict my Chief is, and the War Department about enforcing the 
prohibition against officers' wives, and whether any exceptions have 
been and can be made. 

Wouldn't it be fine if you could be over here? No one in the world 
could be such a help and comfort to these poor tired people, and you 



344 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

would be somewhere near at all events, or nearer than across that 
dreadful ocean. 

I don't know what those four girls would do without you and the 
eight babies to whom you give such loving care, but I am just selfish 
enough to want you myself— if it is a possible and reasonable thing. 
I have heard much discontent and complaint from officers but do not 
know of any wives having come over since the order was issued. 

The Chief was strict and although officers grumbled, the order 
was enforced. 

Colonel Bacon spread himself on "Valentine Day, 191 8," 
"trying," as he said in the last lines of the letter, "not to be 
homesick, and to send" Mrs. Bacon "a little word picture of 
my simple self." 

Your little bundle has just arrived . . . with its 2 pr. socks, i 
sweater, i pocket knife, i safety razor and i small piece chocolate, 
and I love them all and you most of all, and it's the nicest Valentine 
that anybody ever had. I am blessing you every day for the nice 
undershirts and sweaters, which I wear all the time, five thicknesses of 
wool underneath my uniform, and my wooly coat and cache-nez on top, 
and my big warm jaeger blanket around my legs, when I spend the 
night in the Rolls Royce, arriving in Paris at 4 a. m., only to be called 
at 6:30 to take a train to G.H.Q., A.E.F., as I did the other day, 
arriving back yesterday with most satisfactory results, and two new 
chauffeurs, a private from Texas and a sergeant from South Carolina 
to drive the "Schneider" and the "National," and I am thinking 
even of putting Sergeant Daniels In charge of the Rolls Royce to re- 
place Louis La Chaussee, for I like Americans best. I can't have too 
much transportation as there are many errands and jobs to be done by 
Major Q, and me, and soon we shall have others in the family, and 
to-morrow we start housekeeping, as a beginning of which I brought 
back a bag of sugar, a box of lard, canned things of all kinds, matches 
and an oil stove, which is warming my back at this moment in my new 
office, which is about 15 feet by 7 and plenty big enough. Gicquel is 
out at the "Chateau" to-day taking the inventaire and the etat-de-lieUy 
and there is to be a woman of the pays and her daughter and her 
husband of 70 to potter about and keep the fires going. Gicquel 
rather sheepishly suggested last night that his wife would like to come 
and bring her little girl of 12, and there is to be a separate cuisine and 
femyne de cuisine, for the personnel, chauffeurs, orderlies, etc., so as 
not to mix things up too much. The only thing I am afraid of is the 
water supply, which is entirely rain water from the toits. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 345 

The convention requires that the volaille be permitted to walk about 
unmolested, and there are nice old trees with grass under them, and a 
garden, and Oh! . . . how I wish you were going to be there — 
not that I expect to be there much myself — It may all change, and we 
may whisk off at any moment — but a la guerre, comme a la guerre, and 
in the meantime I expect invites, coming and going, and Glcquel will 
be coming Into market every few days, and there will be good English 
bacon and fresh eggs and chicken and salad and a pot au feu, and a 
bottle of red wine. And what more could any man want to eat, which 
you know is not very Important for me. In fact, eating and sleeping 
don't seem at all necessary with any regularity. I never felt more 
energetic or ready to go from morning till night, and I have taken off 
about 10 pounds from my top weight, and hope to get off 5 more, 
which will be just about my Plattsburg weight. I was delighted to 
get Bob's and G's and P's letters, which you sent me. Tell them all 
to write me again, please. Your letter of Jan. 3d did not get to me 
until a week after that of Jan. 24th, so you see it is far from regular, 
but I think we shall do better with this new address. If you get the 
new A. D. C. Insignia, which I sent by Mrs. Belmont, you must have a 
jeweller, or somebody add three more stars, so there will be 4. Car- 
tier did mine for me, as there are none to be bought. I meant to have 
sent you some eagles too, just for fun. . . . 

February i6th was moving dayi 

I am glad the sun is shining to-day ... in my little office, and 
that the oil stove is working well, for it's cold again, awfully cold, 
and my old membranes are giving warning of more trouble, and these 
little flowers that remind me so of you are shivering in the garden. The 
little "personnelles," I suppose you call them snowdrops, are pretty 
cunning, and the yellow one seems to be something like forsythia, but 
isn't. Glcquel is back and forth to-day with Sergeant Daniels carry- 
ing supplies to Brunehautprewith orders to have dinner ready to-night, 
and the guest house, for that is what it is for, will begin to function. 
I shall be here every day, however, and pretty much all day, but it will 
be sort of nice to wake up In the country, if spring ever comes. 

At the risk of talking too much I quote from the " Historique de la 
presente convention" entre le Commandant X et " le Colonel Bacon, 
Chef de la Mission des Etats-Unis aupres du G. H. ^. de Y Armee 
Britannique:" " Sur une demarche personnelle du Colonel B. luifaisant 
connaitre I'impossibilite ou il se trouvait de decouvrir aux environs de 
[Montreuil] une habitation, oil la Mission Americaine puisse s' installer 
\au moins pour la pcriode d'hiver) avec un certain comfort et recevoir les 
visiteurs quelle attend, le Commandant n'a pas cru devoir refuser au Col. 



346 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

B. de prendre possession, etc. etc." — "Z,^ Commandant X a donne son 
assentiment sans quil ait ete question de prix. Le Col. B. versera ce 
quil voudra au Coryimandant. Seul le desir d'obliger le representant, le 
plus qualifie d'une armee Alliee, a pu luifaire accepter Fidee de differer 
cette annee son installation avec sa nombreuse famille. Le Col. B. don- 
nera des ordres pour que les volailles naientpas a souffrir de Inoccupation, 
et circuler librement les portes du garage permettant suffisamment d" en 
interdire Faeces a la volaille." Well there are about 8 pages of foolscap, 
but I will spare you. These foolish things permit a little divertisse- 
ment. . . . 

I had such a nice letter from Virginia yesterday telling me all about 
Bob. I am so pleased and proud that he is doing so well. Brigade- 
Adjutant is virtually Chief of Staff of the Brigade Commander, the 
number of whose men is about equal to a British Division, so that it is 
a great school for the highest kind of staff work, than which there is 
no more important work in the Army, or for which there is no greater 
need of the very best material. We see it over here every day. Staff 
work of this kind is the brains and impulse of the Army, and for it we 
must have young and active men. No athletic body is good without 
its headpiece. We must have the highest kind of courage and effi- 
ciency to lead the men "over the top," but the genius of leadership 
is higher still, and this great splendid Army of ours will be in sore need 
of the necessary staff work. 

These are wise words and they should be remembered. Will 
they be? That is too much to hope. We learn by experience, 
to be sure, but it is usually our own experience, not of the past 
but of the present moment. Ben Franklin tells us fools only 
learn by experience; he should have limited his remarks to 
"wise fools." 

Something in Mrs. Bacon's letter brought the blood to the 
face and the pen flowed on February 20th, as it did when 
Colonel Bacon was aroused and labouring under great excite- 
ment: 

Yes this is hideous war, and I long and dream to finish the dread- 
ful curse, but it must be finished right, or there will be nothing but 
suffering and agony for our children's children, and a reversion to an 
intermittent state of war, and selfish international greed and oppres- 
sion — the striving for the Golden Rule will be forgotten, and the law 
for a decent respect to the opinion of mankind and consideration of 
any kind for others will be set back for generations, and you might 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 347 

as well turn toward the wall the little framed set of resolutions which 
hangs in my room. . . . 

The conditions you speak of at home are painful and exasperating, 
for they are due to nothing but our entirely unnecessary and fatuous 
unpreparedness but we are doing wonders and the national soul is 
saved and the nation will endure. 

If only the tonnage will be forthcoming! And it will! From now 
on a steady stream will pour across the ocean. Our friends here will 
hold steadfast and true and unconquerable, I haven't a doubt of it. 
My faith in these people is beyond expression. . . . 

Your little red-headed girl and your large boys and your cunning 
girls — I wish you had twice as many. I am sure you would like to 
mother them all. I wish there was something in the world I could do 
for the boys, the big boys I mean. They are so fine, and I am so 
pleased and proud of them. . . . 

I have started in housekeeping with a will, and Gicquel is as busy 
as a bee. We are having an American Major General and his A. D. C. 
dine and spend the night to-night. It is really fine waking up in the 
country and everything reminds me of you. Out of the window this 
morning the chickens circulee librement^ and the little curly haired girl 
of 4 walked about with the British soldier, and the fat plumber from 
the neighboring village arrived in a two-wheeled cart with the 
daughter of the cook. That menage^ by the way, mother, father, 
and daughter are hardly up to the work, and I am looking for others. 
They are too fatigues^ poor souls. The calorijere marche and the 
house is nice and dry, and I have wood fires in the cheminees. It takes 
12 minutes to come to town after breakfast and after dinner, and I 
get back and to bed before midnight, I wish I had my Marie from 
Chaumont, and she wept and wanted to come but of course I wouldn't 
take her. Quek and I walked out last night before dinner in just an 
hour and a half going fast, and on the way we passed a football 
match. They needn't laugh at home, for this is a Hfe saver and 
absolute necessity, for these poor devils away from home. It is in no 
spirit of frivolity, just as I am not ashamed to ride every chance I get 
and you must do it too. . . . You must learn to relax a little 
once in a while. The machine won't stand it at the pace you go. 

I was interrupted here and to-day is the 21st. General Glenn and 
his aide who passed the night with me have gone. Look him up if you 
can when he comes your way. He used to be Gen. Wood's Chief of 
Staff and now commands a Division. 

Major Quek has left me for a few days so I am alone with my little 
friend, Private Mahoney, Gicquel, and Sergeant Daniels of North 
Carolina, who is my latest treasure and chauffeur. 

I am off to Boulogne to-morrow to the dentist. Dr. Parker, of Massa- 



348 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

achusetts, and in a few days expect to call upon the ear specialist, 
Doctor Darrach of Pershing's Unit, so you see I am among pro- 
fessional friends. Harvey Gushing and George Brewer are near by. 

The letter of February 25th was scrappy and interrupted. It 
tells, however, the story of a May day: 

Yesterday was a bright, warm day, and I tried to be cheerful, but 
to-day starts badly. . . . 

I am snatching this moment after breakfast in my nice little room 
with sunshine and a fire in it and a good desk. . . . The country 
from here to B [oulogne] is wonderful, and the great rolling stretches 
as far as the eye can reach of brown plough land and green and purple, 
dotted with nice French horses ploughing, driven by young boys and 
women and old men were beautiful and pathetic. The spring is early 
after the unusual cold and snow, and every inch is being cultivated. 

I am off to town now and to-day I am expecting five guests to 
remain indefinitely, Lieutenant-Colonels and Majors with their 
orderlies, so Gicquel and I are full of preparation, and I am afraid the 
poor refugee lady is not up to the cooking, although we don't ask for 
much. Soup, pot atifeu and compote, that is all, and eggs for break- 
fast, but she is not equal to it, I am afraid. 

Feb. 27th. 

My guests came and I have had three pretty hectic days. 

(interrupted again). 
So I will close this up, having begun another in my office where 
three officers are talking business. 

Under the caption of the "Last day of Winter" (February 
28th), Colonel Bacon has more than one interesting thing to 
say, or that which he would dearly have liked to say, and a few 
details of his life and character enter unconsciously and help to 
make him a thing of flesh and blood: 

Another nice box arrived yesterday with the ginger and cheese 
and guava jelly and figs and prunes, and I shall offer some of them 
to my guests to-night at dinner. I still have three (as I was begin- 
ing to tell you in my unfinished letter) and Major Quek is back from 
London. On Sunday all my guest rooms were full, six in all, and I 
had three British orderlies to help Gicquel, and five British general 
officers to dinner, making 12 in all, and Louis the chauffeur cooked 



CHIEF OF MISSION x^T BRITISH G. H. Q. 349 

the meat because the refugee lady doesn't know how, and the dinner 
was a great success, and the house warm and dry from the chauffage 
central, and the bright wood fires. All it needed was you, for it was 
a memorable occasion, and historic in importance, for nothing in the 
world can be of so far-reaching effect, both now and through the years, 
as this getting together. I have had a wonderful month, which 
nothing can ever take away from me, and the sun has shone too, and 
even my colds and swollen membranes have disappeared till yesterday. 
To-day I am starting in again with another sore throat and cold, but 
these little ailments are of no consequence, although you know what a 
baby I am when I have a cold. I have been riding before breakfast, 
and the spring is beginning to give signs of life, and everywhere the 
nice white horses are ploughing. To-day we tossed the medicine ball 
before breakfast, where there was fresh butter and milk and eggs from 
the fer7ne, and bread from the canteen bakery, and bacon from 
England, and even sugar from the U. S. A. Q. M. stores, so you see we 
are not to be pitied. 

The last two days I have been (with two of my guests) scooting 
about all over the country, many hundred kilometres, for a certain 
purpose, and the lovely old chateaux, empty or partly occupied after 
four years of devastating, demoralizing war are simply pathetic, and, 
as a nice young black-eyed widow, who runs a small restaurant in a 
town some 50 kilometers from here, said to us day before yesterday, 
not a home behind all the doors and closed blinds in city, village or 
farm but is bereft of all their men, away at the front, many never to 
return, but their courage, their faith and determination is wonderful 
to see. . . . 

I wonder if you ever got a letter from me in November or December, 
suggesting that Hereford might employ his spare time in getting up 
some material out of the odds and ends of my past life ! It is sort of a 
fancy of mine (perhaps in my dotage) to amuse myself by patching 
together the pieces if I live for a hundred years. 

Just as his previous letter was dated the last day of winter, so 
the next one of March ist is written under the heading of 
"Gentle Spring": 

You certainly do knit and knit . . . and your warm woolly 
sweaters and tricots have been the comfort of my winter's discontent, 
and the undershirts too — for I have often worn five thicknesses of 
wool under my blouse, and I have four at this moment and none too 
many, although theoretically spring has come. . . . 

No one can stand the strain of piling on the work of body, soul and 



350 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

mind and at the same time cut oflF his feed. Old horses won't stand it 
as well as colts, and it's hard for you and me to build up wasted energy. 

I am getting very careful of myself and really try hard not to get 
run down. You must break away or you will break down. . . . 

Your letter to-day of the I2th says that you are all right again, but 
I'm afraid, and it would help me tremendously if I could hear that 
you had gone away with Fannie or something like that. 

Mrs. Bacon had been ill, was overdoing and was exposed, 
Colonel Bacon feared, to a serious breakdown. He was about 
the worst person in the world to give advice, if practice were a 
pre -requisite to precept. He never thought of self, he never 
spared himself, but he knew that there was sure to be a day of 
reckoning. He would have agreed with the ponderous state- 
ment of Doctor Johnson, to the effect that "Nature always ex- 
acts exorbitant interest from borrowed capital," and he would 
have paid, indeed he did pay, the interest. His own way of 
putting it was homelier than Johnson's but just as effective. 

Colonel Bacon was apparently very busy in the first week of 
March as his next letter is of the 8th: 

Your news about Bob was most interesting. It is certainly an 
honor and appreciation to be kept on by so good a man as General 
Snow, and I am mighty pleased and proud of him if he can keep it up. 
It shows that he has made himself useful. 

I am wondering what Ett's fate will be in case his Division should 
be sent over while he is still at F [ort] S [ill]. Will he be called back, 
or left to finish his ten weeks, and the same of G of course, although 
I am not quite clear what Division G belongs to. Good old G., I 
sent him a cable yesterday on his birthday, but it may never get there. 
It is too exasperating not to know anything of each other. They 
would be intensely interested if I could only tell them a lot of things 
and I am naturally crazy to hear from them, and their plans. Some 
day I may get an inkling if I only knew what unit they were with! 
And wouldn't it be exciting if one of them should turn up hereabouts!! 
My guests are still with me, although they are starting housekeeping 
for themselves before long. 

The Bishop is coming to spend Sunday with me. He has been 
living in my little house that I told you about, for the last two weeks, 
and is crazy about it and Madame Miot and her little girl and the cat. 
I saw him at C [haumont] the other day, for I dashed there and back 
through Paris without stopping. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 351 

There is a gap of almost a week between the last and the next 
letter of March 15th: 

I have been flying about a good deal since I wrote you the other day, 
and yesterday came through Amiens, so I am sending you this little 
feller (pin enclosed) who sits through the ages in the cathedral there, 
for I know you will think him pretty cunning. The days go by each 
one fuller than the last, thank fortune, so there isn't much time to 
think. My little household goes on with many changes although I still 
have three steady boarders besides my colleague. Major Quek, and the 
longer days and sunshine make me look forward to spring, if one could 
look forward to much of anything these days, but I mustn't say that, 
for I am trying to be philosophical and I appreciate how much harder 
it is for you. . . . 

Your account of the parade on the 22nd will be thrilling, and I 
should have bawled with you if I had been there. ^ I am still wonder- 
ing what will become of the boys, if their divisions should come before 
they finish at Fort Sill. We shall know before long, I suppose. Then 
they will have a long period of training here in one of the Artillery 
Camps. Lots of our young American officers are attending the 
French schools at Saumur, Fontainebleau, etc., and there are special 
training areas for artillery and flying corps besides the infantry. 

It is all very wonderful and the necessary services of supply and 
lines of communication and transportation are quite bewildering. 

Think what it all means after bringing them in some cases 2000 or 
3000 miles by land and 3000 miles by sea. The problem is so tre- 
mendous that it is hard to grasp, but our little neglected and despised 
regular army has supplied the brains and the organization for this vast 
accomplishment, and the spirit of the nation is furnishing the men and 
making the sacrifice. We must see and appreciate the big and bright 
side of this great human lesson all the time, and never allow ourselves 

The passage to which Colonel Bacon refers is contained in Mrs. Bacon's letter of 
February 2i, 191 8: 

You would be thrilled if you could see the infantry that have just come down from 
Camp Upton to-day to march to-morrow, Washington's Birthday. Ten thousand of 
them are going to march down 5th Avenue, and they are an inspiring sight, and we 
have a right to be proud of our National Army. No better propaganda for Universal 
MiHtary Service could be made than this one of seeing the improvement shown in the 
physical and moral and mental appearance of these men. They are alert, straight 
and full of pride, which shows with every even swing of their bodies, and' the Na- 
tional Guard is lost in comparison. Sammy Jay, Jack Prentice, Frank Appleton, 
and about all the captains are boys you know, and I mean to go out somewhere and 
get a seat to see them go by to-morrow, though it will choke me to do so. However, 
keeping your patriotism stirred is about all that keeps one these days. 



2S2 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

to lose sight of it, or we shall be crushed by the awful pathos and 
tragedy of it all. 

I have a very good-looking and intelligent yellow-curly-haired 
English boy, who says he is nineteen but does not look over 15, as 
bonne-a-tout-faire and valet de pied — an enlisted man and regular 
Tommy who has been in the army a year and has been working with 
the burial party out there. 

The day after I received your letter speaking of little Tommy Hitch- 
cock, I heard that he was missing! I can imagine your sympathy. . . . 

On the 1 6th he adds: 

Just a line . . . as a P. S. to letter of yesterday, telling you not 
to say to any one that I mentioned little Tommy's name. I have not 
a minute to ramble along with my usual newsless scrawl and I have no 
news to tell, so you will have to put up with this disappointing scrap. 

The drive was under way. In his letter of March 20th (in 
the middle he says it is the 26th) he asks Mrs. Bacon to read 
between the lines and remember the dates. The world re- 
members them, too. 

I am just back from a thrilling day, but you know how easily I thrill 
in these days when simple things seem to move me way down deep. 
It wasn't much, just a visit many miles away through the green and 
brown fields, and the white horses ploughing, to a place where twenty 
as fine American boys of 25 to 30, officers, lieutenants, and captains 
gave an exhibition under the direction of their wonderful British 
teacher in recreational drill and exercises before an audience of 100 
British officers just out from England, and I was proud of them. You 
have no idea of the good impression these boys are making here, or of 
the genuine warmth and cordiaHty of their reception. It does my 
heart good and my eyes are always wet when I think or speak of it. 
Nothing could be finer for me than to be here watching it all after 
these three dreadful years and trying to take some small part in this 
particular phase of it. 

I am so afraid that something will happen to rob me of my job 
here that I can hardly bear it, and I just find a letter this evening 
from Walter Lawrence saying that he saw you on the 4th of March ! 
and that you were well again. . . . He seems most enthusiastic 
about his trip and in love with America, — a real brave soul and gentle, 
kindly understanding. He quotes me lines from the Tempest: 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 3S3 

How beauteous mankind is! 

O, brave new world, 

That has such people in't! 
He seems to seek the best, and the line of beauty and finds it. 

I have been carrying about this crumpled scrap in my jacket for 
the last six days and if it could only speak to you of what it has 
seen and heard and felt, you would indeed have the whole story 
of my life and soul and my hopes for the future. You must read 
between the lines now if you can. I am snatching a moment at this 
quiet country place after breakfast while waiting for the others to 
finish. 

I arrived back last night from a swift journey of a thousand kilo- 
metres via Paris to see my Chief. Remember well these dates! 
This is the 26th. Remember too all that I have thought and said 
these last three years when people thought me mad. It is all true 
and nothing will ever be the same again. Good old world! 

The dates to which Mr. Bacon referred were indeed import- 
ant — or perhaps it would be better to say that the incidents 
which occurred on those dates were important, which was what 
Mr. Bacon had in mind. 

The last great drive, as it turned out to be, for which the 
Germans had anxiously prepared for months, was under way. 

American troops were on the way, but the war might be won 
before they could be massed on the battle front. That was 
what Mr. Bacon meant by "hurry, hurry, hurry," and that was 
what the Germans were endeavouring to do during the ominous 
months of the winter. 

There was a feeling in many quarters that the Allied initiative 
on the western front had been lost because of the lack of a 
united command. Steps had been taken in that direction, but 
they had not been carried to their logical termination. An 
executive committee had indeed been appointed by the 
Supreme War Council at Versailles, on February 2, 191 8, with 
General Foch at its head, and a plan had been proposed by this 
committee for reserves at crucial points — one in the south, to 
help Italy, if that country were in distress; another at Paris, 
to the north, and one at that Amiens which was soon to be so 
sorely pressed. A part of the plan involved the extension of 
the British lines. Unfortunately, they were extended without 
the reserves, and it was at this point, occupied by the Fifth 



354 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

British Army, that the attack was begun on March 21, 1918, 
by the Germans massed there in overwhelming numbers. 

General Foch had foreseen this, had warned the political 
leaders of the Allied countries of impending disaster, and had 
proposed reserves in the neighbourhood of Amiens, to be 
drawn upon in case of need. Because of the failure to create 
the reserves, this point was not reinforced. The lines of the 
sorely tried Fifth Army bent under the German attack, and 
were broken. By the 25th of March it looked as if the Ger- 
mans might push through to Paris. But the unexpected re- 
sistance of the British "with their backs to the wall," slowed 
them up, although they could not wholly stop the onrushing 
masses of Germans, intent upon snatching victory while there 
was still time. 

■ The situation was so serious that Mr. Lloyd George was 
asked, on the 24th of March, to repair to France to arrange for a 
single Supreme Commander. In answer to a request from 
Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, the Secretary of War, then 
Lord Milner, and Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial 
General Staff, crossed the Channel, and on Monday, the 25th, 
met M. Clemenceau and General Petain at General Foch's 
headquarters at Compiegne. In the absence of the British 
Commander no decisive action could be taken. The meeting 
adjourned to Doullens, in the north, where, on the 26th, Lord 
Milner, Sir Douglas Haig, and Sir Henry Wilson, met President 
Poincare, M. Clemenceau, General Petain, and General Foch. 
Lord Milner proposed Foch as Supreme Commander. This 
was about the middle of the day. At five o'clock in the after- 
noon. General Foch, not yet Commander-in-Chief in the 
technical sense, but with power to coordinate the armies, got 
into touch with the French, over whom he now exercised su- 
preme authority.^ With the morning of the 27th, the Ger- 
mans, only twelve or thirteen thousand yards away from 

iThe formula was: " Le general Foch est charge par les gouvernements britannique 
eljran(ais de coordonner Faction des armies alliees sur le Jront ouest. Hi entendra a cet 
effet avec les generaux en chej, qui sont invites a lui Journir tous les renseignements neces- 
saires." On 3rd April, at Beauvais, Foch was given "la direction strategique des opera- 
tions militaires." But the Commanders-in-Chief had still the complete control of 
tactics and the right of appeal against Foch to their respective Governments. It was 
not until 24th April that Foch received the " commandement en chej des armies alliees.'" 
A History oj the Great War, by John Buchan, vol. iv (1922), p. 205 note. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 355 

Amiens, were met by French troops which General Foch had 
had transferred during the night. The Germans were held; 
the lines were reformed. The goal which they sought was no 
longer discernible. American troops were hurrying, hurrying, 
hurrying, and the World War was to be won. Then, on March 
28, 1918, came General Pershing's memorable words to Gen- 
eral Foch: 

There is at this time no other question than fighting. Infantry, ar- 
tillery, aviation — all that we have are yours to dispose of as you will. 

I have come to say that the American people would be proud to 
be engaged in the greatest battle in history. 

The next letter is dated "March 29th, '18, 8th Day," 

To-day you and your eight cunning grandchildren came to gladden 
my heart. It is sweet . . . and you are the sweetest of them 
all. What a nice picture of you! I am so pleased, that to-day the 
world seems brighter. I want to pin it upon the wall among the 
maps and say to everyone " Vous voyez cette ange, cest ma femme." 
You remember " cet Vhomme^' in Tours, don't you?^ I really should 
have hardly recognized the little fellows, they have so grown and 
changed. Benny and little Alex have changed least of all. How 
good looking they are. Little Caspar has quite changed and Dor 
too. Little Elliot is a real boy, isn't he. The little girl, large Robert 
and the cunning baby I do not know at all. It is nearly a year since 
I left you all. . . . How I long to get back to you, and for this 
horrid nightmare to pass. As I sit here, snatching a moment every 
now and then to speak to you, bulletins come in every few minutes 
feverishly awaited. The battle rages and sways back and forth, 
and with it perhaps the destinies of us all, and the future of the 
world. I am full of hope to-day and confidence and courage to 
tackle the coming weeks and months and years, if it be given me to 
last so long to fight against this monstrous thing, but I must keep 
away from the subject. . . . 

What of public opinion at home? Is there any real regret that we 
did not get mto it a year sooner? Is there any feeling that we are too 
late to play our part? Do we realize at last that good old France and 
great splendid England have been fighting and fighting with their 
life's blood for 3^ years! have so far defended our homes and firesides, 
our ideals and very souls from disaster and dishonor. 

^The remark of one of Mr. Bacon's children, aged six, while learning French " Voyez- 
vous cet rhomme? Cest mon pere" — pointing to a photograph. It became a household 
expression. 



3S6 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Everyone now shared Colonel Bacon's views but years had 
passed without adequate preparation. Was it too late? His 
next letter, written on the 30th, had more than one interesting 
quotation from the American press: 

Another day . . . and I am sitting here with misty eyes, as 
I read in yesterday's Pos^ and Times of England's message through 
Lloyd George to America!^ . . . Can you appreciate my feelings! 
The N. Y. Sun says: "Doggedly, savagely fighting every inch of 
ground that shields our country from the foe, who would spread 
havoc and slaughter could he reach us, outnumbered, the British 
Army is in the throes of the awfullest battle and carnage the world has 
ever known," and the Times (N. Y.): "The British retreating are 
undefeated, and our faith is strong, they are undefeatable." "The 
future of the world rests on them, and the account they have given of 
themselves makes us believe that it is safe!" No words of mine can 
begin to express to you the depth of feeling in my heart. I see too 
that Leonard Wood has again been before the Senate Committee with 
truths, accurate truths, of which our public opinion at home seems to 
have had not the slightest conception, otherwise long ago and per- 
haps in time, not too late for the good of our own souls, would brave 
words have been translated into action. 

He writes her again, late at night, on March 30th: 

It* is late at night but I must talk to you a little ... al- 
though I have nothing to say, that can be said, but in the strain and 
pressure of times like these it is a relief, as I have already told you. I 
might tell you about my dinner party of to-night. At seven o'clock 

1 telephoned out to the " Chateau " that there would not be more than 

2 or 3 for dinner, perhaps no one. At 7:30 I telephoned that there 
would be 8, at 7:45 that there would be 9 and as a matter of fact we 
arrived at 8:10 — 10 in all, only to find that poor old Gicquel had 
not been able to stand the racket, and had left bag and baggage, 
leaving me the enclosed note. Poor old goose. He just had cold feet, 



'We are at the crisis of the war. Attacked by an immense superiority of German 
troops, our army has been forced to retire. The retirement has been carried out 
methodically before the pressure of a steady succession of fresh German reserves, 
which are suffering enormous losses. The situation is being faced with splendid 
courage and resolution. The dogged pluck of our troops has for the moment checked 
the ceaseless onrush of the enemy, and the French have now joined in the struggle. But 
this battle, the greatest and most momentous in the history of the world, Is only just 
beginning. Throughout it the French and British are buoyed with the knowledge that 
the Great Republic to the West will neglect no effort which can hasten its troops and its 
ships to Europe. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 357 

and skedaddled sans ceremonie. I hope he will get through all right, 
without any laissez passer. So my last retainer has gone, — but 
Clark came to the scratch without a whimper, and we sat down 10 to a 
good simple dinner, the only luxury being a tin box of your chocolates 
from Maillard, which came yesterday. 

My guests were all American officers except one who is a British 
Captain. 

I have only three spending the night, as the others have gone their 
way since dinner, many miles by motor car. It is a satisfaction to 
give wayfarers food and lodging and good cheer for a passing moment. 
As for these big days and their events I may not speak. I try to 
keep my judgment clear and calm, but my temperamental feelings 
lead me into all sorts of mercurial ups and downs. Some of the 
qualities of these people, I repeat myself I know, are simply great, 
and come only from generations if not centuries of thoroughbred stock. 

Between you and me . . . not to be repeated to my friend 
T. R., who thinks me already an Anglophile, I am proud to be of 
Anglo-Saxon breeding and race. 

On Easter Sunday he writes: "Sunshine and blossoms and 
hope in the air, but hate and desperate death struggles every- 
where, and only man is vile." On April 2nd, he says, speaking 
of things that interest him to be sure, but not the things then 
nearest his heart but which he might not say: 

These poor little scrappy scrawls of mine are sort of pathetic 
. . . aren't they? I can't say a thing about the big events that 
are clutching my very soul, and yet I must commune with you a 
little once in a while, and you must try and read between the lines, 
and let your imagination have full play, and your vision be clarified 
to see far ahead into the truth. You speak of being strengthened and 
spirituahzed by Bishop Brent. Would to Heaven that I might be. 
I am softened a little I think. I hope so, and the Bishop always helps 
me by contact. I am expecting him here again in a few days. Speak 
to Bishop Lawrence about him, and the tremendous importance of 
the work he is undertaking as spiritual head of what will be a great 
army, and a great factor in the coming months and years. The 
practical problems that will respond to his leadership, fearless as it 
will be, problems which affect the life and health and moral fibre of 

In war time is vital! It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of getting Ameri- 
can reinforcements across the Atlantic in the shortest possible space of time. [Mr. 
Lloyd George's message to the American People, delivered through the Earl of Reading, 
British High Commissioner in the United States, at the Lotus Club Dinner, March 27, 
1918. New York Times, March 28, 1918, p. 3.] 



358 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

the Army, and consequently its fighting force, need all the moral 
support of big men like Bishop Lawrence, to whom please give my 
love and greeting. 

I suppose Harvard College and its affairs have forgotten me. I 
was mighty glad to get the little descriptive pamphlet about the 
Root books. Good old Jamesie is working away I see. Do give him 
and Mrs. S. my best, won't you. I wonder if Jamesie would write 
me a line. I don't deserve it I know, but the old things seem so 
awfully far away, and the world is in the melting pot. 

On the 4th of April : 

I ought not to talk to you to-day . . . for I may not tell you 
what my heart feels, and what else is there to say in times like these. 
Your letter of Caspar's birthday came yesterday. 

April 5th — Another day, and here I am in Paris, at the Crillon, 
just about to start back over the long road to the North. I didn't 
leave there till about 3 o'clock yesterday, and last night I had a 
whole hour with my chief which I shall never forget. Mark well 
the date. . . ."^ It is now morning after a good nap (there haven't 
been many lately) and a hot bath (of which there have been none) and 
I am off. I am reminded of nights in early September, 1914, when 
I wrote you from this hotel and it was hard to make myself under- 
stood, and I knew then the truth as few people knew it. I know it 
now, but I cannot speak it because I may not. 

Colonel Bacon always worked better under encouragement, 
and a word of sympathy was as a tonic to him. He loved 
Harvard University; he was proud to be enrolled upon the long 
list of its graduates. He was happy to be an Overseer, and he 
always regarded his election as a Fellow as one of the highest 
honours which he had received or ever could receive. The 
notification that the degree of Doctor of Laws had been voted 
him by the University and that it would be conferred upon him 
in person at Commencement in June, 191 8, filled him with an 
unexpected pleasure. 

^General Pershing had been in favour of an Allied Commander-in-Chief; so strongly 
in favour of it that on behalf of the United States he joined with Great Britain and 
France in subordinating the Allied Armies to General Foch. The agreement was 
reached at Beauvais, on April 3, 1918. It was signed by Tasker H. Bliss, General and 
Chief of Staff, and John J. Pershing, General, U. S. A. The American Generals acted 
without instructions from their Government, but their action was approved by the 
President of the United States on April 16, 1918. See, Final Report of General John J. 
Pershing to the Secretary oj War, September i, 1919, p. 31- 

Colonel Bacon rightly considered this a date to be remembered. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 359 

April 8th. 

You can imagine . . . how pleased and touched I was yesterday 
to receive the enclosed letter from Doctor Walcott. It came so un- 
expectedly out of the blue, at a time when I felt very far away and 
forgotten by many in the old life that it broke me all up; and you 
know what I did, weak old fool that I am. 

I am sending it to you ... as a precious souvenir, for, of 
course, I cannot go home to get the degree, and our rule is very 
strict that one must be present at Commencement to receive it in 
order to have it really given. But the intention and vote of my old 
colleagues, and the invitation and the hope expressed in their name 
that I may again become a Fellow of Harvard College is enough for 
me, and I am gratified . . . and so will you be. It must not be 
talked of outside on any account, but you will say to any of them 
whom you happen to see [Major Henry L.] Higginson, [President] 
Lowell, [Bishop] Lawrence,^ [Thos. N.] Perkins how deeply I feel 
and appreciate the honor, and what it means to me and mine. It 
came at a time when I am even more sensitive than usual to a kind 
word and thought. 

Colonel Bacon could not, of course, attend. A year later, 
after his return to America, the degree was to be conferred at 
the Commencement in June, 191 9. It was then too late for 
him to receive it in person, but the announcement was made 
at that time that it was to have been conferred. 

'The reference is to the Right Reverend William Lawrence (1850- ), Bishop of 
the Protestant Episcopal Church of Massachusetts; author oi Life oj Amos A. Lawrence 
(1899); Lije of Roger JVolcott, Governor oJ Massachusetts (1902). Fellow of Harvard 
University since 1913. 

Shortly after Mr. Bacon's death, he sent the following letter to Mrs. Bacon: 
My dear Mrs. Bacon, 

Sitting at my desk for the first time in six weeks my first letter is to you, for ever 
since the death of your husband I have seldom had you or him out of my mind. 
Ever since he undertook the raising of a million dollars in New York for Harvard I 
have had an increasing admiration for his unselfishness, public spirit, and devotion. 
Then there has grown upon me the fact that in him was one of the most chivalrous 
characters I ever knew. With what earnestness he spoke for the cause of the Allies 
when the war broke out and with what devotion he gave himself to the cause. Some 
men are noble: few men, however, are noble and at the same time have the charm 
which makes their nobility attractive and winning. 

I never expect to see another man who in personal beauty, charm, and force of 
character revealed the finest type of American citizenship — and at the same time 
he was so considerate, affectionate, and friendly. You and your children have many 
happy memories to cheer and comfort you. God lift up His Countenance upon you. 

Yours sincerely, 

William Lawrence. 



36o ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

To Doctor Walcott's letter of March ii, 191 8, in behalf of 
the Fellows of Harvard University, Colonel Bacon replied on 
April 7, 191 8, as follows: 

My dear Dr. Walcott, 

I am more gratified and touched by your letter of March nth than 
I can possibly express. The distinction which you offer me, Sir, 
on behalf of your Committee is the greatest honor that could have 
come to me, and the one which I shall always prize above all others, 
even though circumstances may prevent my being present at Com- 
mencement in June to permit its bestowal. The fact that you have 
invited me to accept this degree from my Alma Mater will always re- 
main one of my proudest possessions, and a legacy to my children. 
There seems now to be no possibility of my being able to get away in 
June, as my obligations to the Service and to General Pershing 
seem to be too great to permit it. 

The future seems most uncertain, but if by any unforeseen good 
fortune such a thing were to become possible, nothing will prevent 
my coming to Cambridge. 

Please express my gratitude to the Fellows and my very highest 
appreciation of the honor they have done me, doubly grateful and 
dear to me because of the gracious hope which you voice in their 
name that I may again become a Fellow of Harvard College and a 
member of the Corporation, which I have always considered the 
blue ribbon of my life time. 

With highest personal regard, 

Sincerely yours, 

Robert Bacon. 

Colonel Bacon was not able to set apart a few minutes of the 
day for letter writing. He wrote a few lines and if called away, 
as he often was, he laid the letter aside to be finished another 
time, or he put the scrawl, as he would have called it, in his 
pocket where it sometimes remained, crumpled and forlorn, 
until it tumbled out in a search for other things. This hap- 
pened to a letter of March 9th. It is an important expression 
of his views that the future of the world depends upon France, 
Great Britain, and the United States. 

This has been a red letter day ("in one sense of the word," as 
Henry Emmons used to say) although as solemn and dark as any since 
we came into the war. Do you remember the telegram that I re- 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 361 

ceived from my Father on a day in May, the 9th I think, i90i,when 
he told me not to forget that somewhere behind the cloud the sun 
was shining?^ Well, no more of the clouds! but to-day has been a 
sort of a culmination of hopes cherished for many months, if not for 
years. These people are wonderful and I hope that no man, or no 
want of sympathy and understanding shall put us asunder "till death 
us do part," for I believe that the future of the world as we know it, 
or dream about it, depends upon "us three" sticking together and 
fighting it out to the bitter end. Bishop Brent and I have had an 
hour together before the fire this afternoon. He is my honored 
guest over Sunday, and will preach twice to-morrow and speak to the 
British officers on Monday. I went to-day with one of the nicest 
fellows you ever saw, a general officer, out to see the waiting corps 
commanders . . . and if ever there was an inspiration that 
was one. All the little things fade away in the presence of the real 
thing. We were six Americans to-night at dinner, and I wish I 
could tell you all that is in my heart. I have thought much to-day 
of Ett's division, and still wonder what his plans are. 

In a note added on April 15th he says: 

I have just found this in my pocket, or rather on my table at 
home! And what has not happened since! Things that I knew then 
would happen, but could not even hint at them. I have read the 
first two pages of this letter, after a month or so, and wonder if you 
have the slightest idea what I am talking about. I do such a lot 
of thinking when I am writing to you that I feel as if you must know 
what I am talking about, but I am afraid you think I am pretty queer 
these days, and rambling. ... I have not been able to tell you 
the truth, and I have felt like a man in a nightmare, who is trying to 
do or say something and cannot. These last two days have been 
full of excitement. People have arrived who know about Elliot, and 
the general and his adjutant are passing the night with me to-night, 
and have told me all about you. ... I heard that Archer 
Morgan was sick, so although I had been going since seven in the 
morning, I started out again and went 75 kilometers more to find 
him in a hospital by the sea quite happy and his fever all gone. I 
have invited him to come and stay with me to convalesce. I got 
back here after midnight. 



^This was during the panic in Wall Street, caused by the attempt of Mr. Harriman 
to secure a majority of the stock of the Northern Pacific Company. 



362 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Many things he wanted to say, and he described his situation 
and that of every officer holding a position of trust in the Army 
by an illustration in his letter of April 8th: 

As the reports often say, " Rien a signaler sur k front" which means 
about the, same in my case is it does in the reports, viz. : nothing, for 
of course, there are thousands of important and interesting things 
happening to me, which I cannot speak of any more than the reports 
— the communiques — do. "The AustraHan Corps report a quiet 
night" — that is all. 

I am having a good many pleasant and unexpected guests at my 
old Prieure, which Gicquel, alas, has deserted. Yesterday at seven 
o'clock I telephoned to little Clark — good Httle Clark — that there 
would be two for dinner, Lieutenant Lockwood and myself, at eight. 
I arrived with six for dinner — these parties having suddenly blown 
in — 1st, the Bishop, bless his heart, 2nd, Le Commandant Froissart 
himself, my proprietor, came to hearten up his nervous people, and 
3d, two officers whom I was mighty glad to see, and who brought me 
news of America and especially of Elliot and his plans. But to-day 
"gone are all the guests," even Lockwood, and I am expecting Major 
Quekemeyer back, and with him an officer whom you will remember 
— Henry, now Colonel Henry, whom we knew in Washington, now 
commandant of West Point — an awfully nice fellow. 

I must stop in a hurry instead of finishing, so I will send this off 
just as it is. I received the Harvard University Press notice of 
Root's U. S. and the war copy of which I should like to have myself, 
as well as copies of Root's war volume.^ They might come separately 
through London, M. G. and Co. — if not direct by mail. 

April 8th, '18 [later]. 
I didn't expect to write you any more to-day . . . but I just 
looked out the window into my little back yard with high walls and 
espaliers^ and a few forlorn primroses amongst the coal and rubbish, 
and sitting on top of the wall, the little yellow bunches of wallflowers 
which adorn the top of all the old walls hereabouts, and everything 
that is sweet and fresh and simple and natural, especially nature 
itself, always reminds me at once of you, so I made Mahoney climb 
the wall to pick you this litde bunch that smell as sweet as violets, 
but will have lost their fragrance before they get to you, if indeed 
they ever do arrive. 

^The United States and the War— The Mission to Russia— Political Addresses, by 
the Honourable Elihu Root. Collected and Edited by Robert Bacon and James Brown 
Scott (1918). 



CHIEF AT MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 2^3 

It will be many weeks before I stand the least chance of seeing Ett, 
for he will in all probability go off to the South to equip and prepare 
for a long time apart from the others. 

I saw an old friend of his though yesterday, in fact, he was one of 
the officers who spent Saturday night with me, whom he knew in 
Manila and whom I met in El Paso. 

The letter of April nth is rather downcast. Evidently 
rumours were astir of a change in the Mission. 

"Mother's Day." 

Rather a sad day for me . . . and I am still playing that 
"good loser" game, and racking my brains to know from hour to 
hour just how to play it, how to be left in a position to do some real 
service. 

The next few days will decide a lot of things for me personally, and 
in the meantime it's not easy to turn this office over to the new Chief 
of Mission . This tiny office is simply overrun, and there is no peace or 
privacy or sympathy. It's every one for himself in the Army — but 
these are the little petty things, and I am ashamed to speak of my 
small troubles. Forgive me. Quek has gone. I am left alone 
with the Lieutenant . . . and the house seems empty. Little 
Clark, my only standby, picks lilacs for the table and pyrus japonica 
and violets and the twilights are long — dining after eight in bright 
daylight. . . . You see I am trying not to talk about the all- 
absorbing, ghastly war! 

Your fine handkerchiefs came from Tillon and you were pretty 
cunning. Now that they have prevented you from sending me 
presents from home, you fool them by sending them from Paris. 

The nice white underclothes came long ago in the winter. You 
haven't sent any more have you? They are perfectly fine, and I am 
trying to save them as much as I can. Your newspaper clippings 
were thrilling and I feel as if the nation, or most of it, were really 
waking up to a realization of what they are up against. 

With a knowledge of the situation on the British front, and 
writing in the atmosphere of profound discouragement if not of 
despair, Colonel Bacon's letters reflect the spirit of his en- 
vironment. He himself, was, however, firm in the faith that 
the Allied cause would ultimately triumph. 

Under date of April I2th, and under the heading "Mark well 
the date," he wrote: 



364 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

My heart is broken. . . . Read if you can the order of General 
Currie commanding the Canadians, of March 27th. "Under the 
orders of your devoted officers in the coming battle you will advance 
or fall where you stand facing the enemy" but you must read it 
all.^ It's only one of hundreds or rather thousands of such inspi- 
rations. 

Remember . , . that all through these recent months I have 
known the truth; the actual truth, as it was coming, as it has come 
to pass. 

On the 13th he expresses the doubt that constantly tor- 
mented him: 

On [Queen] Mary's heart was found I believe "Calais," but not 
mine, for "my back is against the wall," and "o« ne passera pas!'' 
but you will find there, on my heart, I mean, "Too late." . . . 

The wonderful British heroes, in whose atmosphere I live and 
whom I see every day, are indeed an inspiration, and if only it would 
help, even a little in the making of the Nation (ours I mean), and in 
the making of the good old world a better place for our boys and girls 
to live in and pass on in their time, then, indeed, one is ready to make 
the great sacrifice. 

April i6th, '18. 

I am full of hope and confidence that it will all turn out right. 
England !s magnificent and cannot be beaten. So is France. The 
deeds performed, the qualities and character shown, the morale, all 
are beyond description and praise and what did you think of Sir Doug- 



1" Looking back with pride on the unbroken record of your glorious achievements, 
asking you to realize that to-day the fate of the British Empire hangs in the balance, 
I place my trust in the Canadian Corps, knowing that where Canadians are engaged 
there can be no giving way. Under the orders of your devoted officers in the coming 
battle you will advance or fall where you stand facing the enemy. 

"To those who fall I say: 'You will not die, but will step into immortality. Your 
mothers will not lament your fate, but will be proud to have borne such sons. Your 
names will be revered for ever and ever by your grateful country, and God will take 
you unto Himself.'" Lieutenant-General (later General) Sir Arthur Currie's charge 
to his troops before they entered the battle. Buchan's History of the Great War, vol. iv, 
p. 228. 

Sir Arthur Currie (1875- )> whose Order of the Day impressed the entire civilized 
world, as well as Mr. Bacon, commanded the ist Canadian Division in France (1914- 
1917), and the Canadian Corps in France (1917-1919). In 1920, after his return to 
Canada, he was elected to and accepted the principalship of McGill University. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 365 

las' message to England.^ The days of Nelson- and Wellington have 
come again and never has England or France fought for a nobler 
cause. And America! I daily pray that she may make good in 
every way. We have helped, we have been of incalculable financial 
and moral support, and now the big prices and the real sacrifice! 
I have waked up at night for many months and heard a voice: Hurry, 
hurry, hurry! Hurry, hurry, hurry! I have been impatient and at 
times agitated and have looked things squarely in the face. A great 
calm has come to me now, and — 

This is April 29th, and I find this scrap still in my pocket along with 
the scrawl from Paris. I am ashamed to send them but you will 
understand. 

Colonel Bacon was trying to keep his courage up. In a letter 
of the 22nd he wrote: 

A nice Irish colonel came in the other day, of a well-known North 
of Ireland regiment, and told me that the motto of his regiment was 
"Keep Smiling," and, as it was on a particularly critical day, I 
adopted it at once, and have made it the ynot d'ordre of this office, 
and my own . . . and my pen must smile too, for as this splendid 
C. in C. said the other day in his message to England, "My back is 
against the wall. . . ." 

The thing that is nearest my heart, as you can well imagine, is the 
rapprochement y the ever-closer alliance and union of British and 
American Armies and Nations. There is nothing else so important 
to win the war, and for all time to win peace for the world. Can you 
imagine how intense my longing is to do every little thing, no matter 
how small, how intangible, to contribute only just a little. You can 
imagine me better than any one. You know how I care about things. 
You know how I care about this, and how my small part in it looms 
large in my poor soul, and how I try to carry the whole war and its 
responsibility on my poor, weak old shoulders. 

I Through all this wonderful month that has just gone, since you 
wrote your letter on the 22nd and spoke of the German drive having 
begun, I have felt very close to these splendid Britons who are run- 

^" Every position must be held to the last man. There must be no retirement. 
With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us 
must fight to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend 
alike upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment." Field Marshal Sir 
Douglas Haig's Special Order of the Day, April ii, 1918, addressed to "All Ranks of the 
British Army in France and Flanders." New York Times, April 13, 191 8, p. I. 

^Colonel Bacon apparently had in mind Lord Nelson's famous signal before the Battle 
of Trafalgar, "England expects every man to do his duty." 



366 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

ning the whole show, and no words of mine can ever express my ad- 
miration^ for them. The boche says now quite openly that we, 
America, are the only hope of the Allies, and that we are too late. 
We are not too late, in the sense that he means, although you know 
my views on that subject. 

The little stream is getting bigger every day. Faster! faster! for 
God's sake, and the wall of blood and iron is getting stronger and will 
hold steady as a rock, till the big stream bursts in upon them, and 
carries us all up on to a victory over this monstrous thing. Think 
of the part we must play, think of the delicacy and difficulty of steer- 
ing this wonderful force which must be the greatest moral and phys- 
ical, aye! and spiritual that the world has ever known, or it cannot 
lift the poor tired world out of the Slough of Despond into which 
these soulless blackguards are trying to sink it. Hurry! hurry! and 
the victory will be the more complete! 

In view of the feverish activity on the British front, Colonel 
Bacon must have had, as he says, in a simple- but significant 
sentence, "many guests lately and of the greatest importance, 
coming and going on duty of staggering importance."^ He 
himself was as busy as any of his guests. On the 25th he writes 
from the Hotel de Crillon: 

I am here in Paris by the merest chance without even a toothbrush 
or razor, chafing to get away again, but delayed by a panne [break- 
down]. An Ambulance from Neuilly ran plump into the back of the 
Rolls Royce, and split the gasoline tank wide open so I am tied by the 
leg, and Sergeant Daniels is trying to get me a new tank in tirhe to 
get away before dark, which would get me back again up North about 

^Many expressions of appreciation for Mr. Bacon's hospitality might be cited from 
its recipients. One must suffice. 

HEADQUARTERS II CORPS, 
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES. 

Bonnetable, France, 
January 6, 191 8. 

My dear Colonel Bacon: 

Will you please accept my somewhat tardy but grateful thanks for your very kind 
hospitality during my stay at Montreuil? 

Your bed and board, so graciously tendered, was certainly an oasis to me, a lonely 
wanderer in a friendless land. The warmth and comfort was fully appreciated, I 
assure you. 

With kindest regards, I am 

Very sincerely, 

F. E. BUCHAN, 

Colonel, G. S. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 367 

midnight, if I should be lucky. I saw young [Ted Roosevelt] last 
night with his division and made a point to-day of going to see 
Eleanor to tell her he was in fine shape. Tell T. R. and tell him too 
how straight what he is quoted as having said two days ago went to 
my heart. I am going to try to see Archie Roosevelt to-day. . . 

This place is full of missions and commissions and conferences and 
sailors and politicians, and is no place for me. Back to the real 
fellers, who are heroes with their back to the wall, or holding on the 
one-yard line with nothing but them between us all and despair. Not 
for a minute can they be beaten any more than Lawrence was beaten 
at Lucknow, when he was listening and at last heard the pipes in the 
distance, when he was sick at heart and sore pressed, but did not 
show it. Last night just at dusk I came to a little village, where the 
band of an American artillery brigade or regiment was just finishing 
a little concert after supper, and hundreds of fine American lads were 
grouped about, and just then they struck up the "Marseillaise" and 
then the ''Star-Spangled Banner," and you can imagine the thrill 
that went up and down my back as I jumped out to stand at attention 
and salute with the others. 

In a letter of April 29th, Colonel Bacon confides to Mrs. 
Bacon that he had read with pride in yesterday's issue of the 
Daily Mail that she "headed the women's division [of the 
parade for preparedness in New York] and 'made a splendid 
showing'." 

I was talking to you yesterday . . . just by myself quietly 
as I so often do, and made up my mind that I couldn't write you 
any more about this hateful war, as you said in one of your letters we 
must think and speak of happier, simple things, and I go to sleep 
every night thinking of you and your little friends, the little red-haired 
girl and big Bob and so on up the scale to W. B. B. who is getting to 
be a real person, isn't he! 

Teach them and let their mothers teach them, when we are gone, 
to despise the hateful cursed things that the Hun is seeking to impose 
upon the world. Teach them that the very opposites of these things 
are the only things worth living and dying for — that love, not hate, 
and kindly consideration and the Golden Rule must rule the world, 
and, if need be, must be fought for and defended by blood and iron 
and tears and agony. And nations too, not only men, must ap- 
preciate and accept these rules of conduct — of international conduct. 
Progress, civilization, human tenderness are in the throes of mortal 
disease, are in the crucible of a fiery furnace and the crisis is not yet. 



368 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Later in the day. 

The news is good to-day . . . and by a coincidence I am dining 
with General D. I dined with him on the 28th of March, which was 
the day the boches were stopped at Arras and Montdidier. To-day 
he said "Come along to-night and we'll have another turn in the 
battle." 

Colonel Bacon had joyfully dated his letter of March ist, 
"The First Day of Spring," but the elements were not to be 
brought into camp with phrases. 

Under date of May 3d he writes: 

To-day is the first that feels at all like spring ... the first day 
that I have been willing to dispense with my little kerosene stove in 
my little office, and the sun is streaming in the window — actually 
warmer outside than inside, and, in spite of it, I am sort of sad, but 
keep on smiling. Five days almost of comparative quiet and relief 
from the desperate tension and strain. The storm will break out 
again with redoubled fury perhaps, but the story of the past six 
weeks proves that you are right ''on ne passera pasT 

These splendid men, almost superhuman in their courage, and calm, 
grim determination, stand like a rock against the flood. The French, 
too, are wonderful in their brilliancy and fighting spirit and dash. 
The mode of thought, the attitude of mind, the mentality, even, is a 
little diflferent, but let no one say that they do not fully appreciate 
and admire the great qualities of each other. They are shoulder to 
shoulder to the end, and they want us alongside, and I never longed 
for anything so intensely as that we should be now quickly, for our 
own sakes, as well as for theirs and the cause, shoulder to shoulder 
with them "^ la vie, a la mort. " And we shall be, and the world will 
be saved from the unspeakable Hun and his dastardly domination. 

"Two British officers last night, several American lately 
and to-morrow adinner party "put his housekeeping to a severe 
test, owing to the loss of his "loyal and devoted serviteurs." 
Of course he wishes to tell of his guests and their raison d'etre 
but of course he cannot.^ 

^Among Colonel Bacon's effects was found a blank-book called " Brunehautpre 
Visitors' Book." It contains many a notable name, although some of his visitors were 
too worried and hurried to sign. Some of the guests of April list who registered were 
the Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces, General John J. 
Pershing; Generals Harbord and Nolan, etc., and on July 20th, Tasker H. Bliss, Brevet- 
General, U. S. Army, Permaient American Military Representative in the Supreme 
War Council at Versailles. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 369 

There is a personal item of a general nature affecting all 
Americans alike and interesting as a leaf on the stream to show 
its current: 

So you must stop your blessed little envoies that have meant so 
much to me, chocolates, socks, soap and all ! You have been a darling 
to take all the trouble and be so thoughtful of me all the time. I 
have loved the little packages and eagerly looked for them, but I un- 
derstand why a regulation should be made, and enforced. Two thirds 
of all the space and tonnage allotted for mail has been other than first 
class, and thousands of tons have been shipped this way by parcel 
post. It had to be stopped, or at least minimized. . . . 

By the way, I felt obliged and wanted to do my part, so cabled to 
subscribe to the Loan for you and me and the boys and girls but to do 
so I had to sell some of our Anglo-French bonds, at a considerable loss, 
of course, but I felt that we had to take a big hunk of our own and 
didn't know what else to sell quickly. We must charge it all to our 
family contribution to the war. I have been meaning for a long time 
to ask you to tell the boys, all of them, to put their minds on the ques- 
tion of my investments as well as their own, and to send me any sug- 
gestions of possible changes. 

The next letter that Colonel Bacon wrote was one long cry 
of agony straight from the heart, for it conveyed to Mrs. 
Bacon the news that he was to lose the post with British Head- 
quarters which he loved like life and in present conditions, even 
more than life itself. The reasons for his proposed transfer 
have been already given in detail, inasmuch as it seemed better 
to state at the beginning rather than later the grounds for the 
transfer and Colonel Bacon's success in the performance of his 
many and arduous duties. The transfer never took place, as 
Sir Douglas Haig intervened, not in Colonel Bacon's interest 
but in the interest of the British Army for which as Commander- 
in-Chief he had the right to and actually did speak. The in- 
cident is therefore of importance in this connection as it shows 
the spirit of service with which Colonel Bacon was animated. 
The correspondence for the next few days is full of the subject, 
as he was writing to Mrs. Bacon, but he could not rid himself 
of the feeling even, in writing to her, that it was unworthy to 
think of little personal matters in such a crisis of the world. 
In the first letter of this series he plunges in without a word of 
introduction : 



370 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

May 5thj 191 8. 

I have just received a staggering, stunning knock-out blow. I have 
been relieved. Not a real knock-out perhaps, for I shall try to bear 
up and carry on and smile! I was too happy in my work and sur- 
roundings. It was too good to last. Now I must go, not up but 
down, and "upon being thus relieved, will proceed ... for the 
purpose of taking the next course at the Army General Staff College." 
If I were twenty years younger, I should jump at the chance, full of 
courage and ambition, but the old horse is lame . . . and will 
not pass the Vet. and in war time there is no use for old cripples. 
There is no time to fool with them, so, like General Bell, I shall 
probably have to "creep home and take my place, lad, the spent and 
maimed among," . . . but this is only for your own dear private 
ear. To the world at large, and even to the boys and Sister, I must 
take it like a soldier, having made my bed. I shall set my teeth and 
go hard at the Staff College course, even at my years, and if I can 
pull it off and make good, well, I can hold my head high after all. If 
my health holds out ... I can do it, and my back is against 
the wall like splendid Sir D. H.'s, and I'll try to be true to my Anglo- 
Saxon traditions. 

Of course there is a technical and professional reason for it, and I 
feared it might come. I shall be relieved by a General Officer Com- 
manding, as there was not thought to be room for both, and it's 
mighty kind and considerate of General Pershing to send me to the 
Staff College, and I shall be very proud, but just this morning (I 
have known less than an hour) it is so hard for me to leave my friends 
here, and a job, into which I had thrown myself heart and soul, 
and which I even flattered myself I could do as well as any one, that 
the fact is I am just gasping and trying to get hold of myself, and pour- 
ing out my soul to you ... to you to whom I always turn in 
joy or sorrow, and I get courage as I write, and new determination 
to carry on and make good, no matter what happens. It is all so 
small and comparatively trivial after all when one stops to consider 
the big, awful, crucial things that are happening to the whole world 
and impending each day. What does an atom Hke me amount to 
anyway, and I am already ashamed even to have allowed myself to 
cry out when I was wounded and hurt. It is over now, and I shall be 
worthy of you after all, even if I fail, but I shall not fail. "0« ne 
passera pas"^ and I shall hold on to my panache. . . . 

i"//j ne passeront pas. They shall not pass." 

General Petain. At the end of February, 1916, General de Castelnau was sent by Gen- 
eral Joffre to decide whether Verdun should be abandoned or defended. He consulted 
with General Petain, saying, "They (the Germans) must not pass." General Petain said; 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 371 

May 6, '18. 

I must say another word. ... I find myself enfin seul after 
a hectic day and more to come later, I am still somewhat dazed 
after yesterday's news, and don't know exactly where I'm at. I have 
taken my eagles off, and my ecusson with the 4 stars, and now back 
to the Q. M. C. and the gold leaves, which I find I don't mind at all. 
I do mind being pulled away from this work, though, at just this time, 
with big things pending. I feel very close to these splendid fellows 
and I'm proud to think that they mean it when they say they don't 
want me to go. If sympathy and understanding are real and deep at 
times like this, they mean much. I don't want to leave them at 
such a time especially, and I won't if I can help it, no matter what it 
may cost for the future. I am flattered of course to be sent to the 
StaflF College, which means going on, if I can do the work, and perhaps 
becoming a real officer, which, of course, has been my dream, for to 
grow into a soldier at my time of Hfe, even though it's for the Staff — 
the brains and direction, not the actual command of men in the line, 
is unusual and gratifying when one wants to serve. So I have of- 
fered to stay and work under General Harts, as liaison officer, and 
I should be rather pleased to do it as a Major after having been a 
Colonel. I know it would be appreciated. You know me . . . 
I like to be liked and don't care a damn for rank and all that, except 
as an evidence of work well done, and honorable service. The Staff 
College course to which I am ordered begins, I think, toward the last 
of May and lasts over two months. What will those Fort Sill boys 
think of my going to school again ? Jiminy, it will be hard and fright- 
ens me to death, but I shall go to it, unless they desire to leave me 
here to work for England's hour and the cause, through our union 
with her, which may its bonds grow stronger and stronger and be- 
come indissoluble for the good of the world, for Freedom and the fu- 
ture of our children's children. I shall be in suspense for several 
days, and in any event expect to stay here two weeks more, in which 
time much may happen! This is another great wrench and parting 
of the ways. You have often said that the hardest thing is to know 
one's duty. The doing of it is easier when one is sure which way to 

I have just been interrupted by a long distance call from out there, 
saying that a letter had been written to me explaining what had 
happened to me! I shall be glad to know. It appears that three 
A. D. C.'s quorum pars Jul have been relieved and revert to their 

"They shall not pass." In France the people credit it to General Joffre. See N. Y. 
Times, May 6, 191 7. Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations, revised edition 
by K. L. Roberts (1922), p. 853. 



372 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

former rank and station. The School is said to be to give me the 
opportunity which I wanted — the others go their several ways. 
There have been also many other changes in the General Staff. My 
little friend McCoy gets what he wants, and others all along the line, 
with more or less satisfaction. So it goes. And it's all so little as 
compared with the stupendous real things that are going on that it 
seems absurdly insignificant. 

May 6, 'i8. 

I am more content to-night . . . probably for two reasons. 
I have just dined with three British noblemen. I mean natural 
noblemen, not the titled kind, and I don't know that of all my ac- 
quaintance and experience I have ever known three finer men.^ 
That is a good deal, isn't it? And when I tell you that they were 
all just as considerate and sympathetic toward me, and really wanted 
me to stay amongst them, you can see why I am so pleased and 
flattered. I wish I dared tell you who they were, but when I tell 
you that no one's opinion could be so important or mean so much to 
me just now, you may guess the kind of soldiers they are. No one 
did I say? Perhaps this letter which I find on my desk to-night is 
even more welcome and important: 

My dear Colonel Bacon, 

I have given this day orders to relieve yourself. Col. and Col. 

from duty on my personal staff. 

The etc. render unnecessary the maintenance of a separate 

office there for the work which you have efficiently performed to my 
satisfaction since you were detailed as an A. D, C. . . . I take 
this occasion to express to you my earnest appreciation of the whole- 
hearted way in which you have constantly performed every duty 
given you since our departure from New York last May. Your 
enthusiasm, your willingness and singleness of purpose are an ex- 
ample to all of us. I have given orders that you be accorded the 
privilege of a term at the Staff College, which will bring you more in 
touch with the work of the Staff in general, and will open for you a 
new opportunity for increased usefulness. 

With best wishes for your future. 

Signed personally — [John J. Pershing]. 

Kindly and considerate ... to take this trouble in the midst 
of the biggest things that ever a man had to tackle, and I don't mind 
if you tell a few of my real friends who may wonder why I am reduced 

K)ne of the three was none other than Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 373 

in rank. You know those whose opinions I care about and value, and 
with whom I like to share my satisfaction. 

May 10, '18. 

I am getting a little "fed up" with playing the camouflage part of a 
"good loser" . . . They tried to console me after my senatorial 
fiasco by telling me that I was a good loser. 

I am trying to be now, and keep on smiling although the medicine is 
not very pleasant to take. But I plug along as I did last winter at 
G. H Q., and try to pretend that I do not mind my demotion. 

It would be easier, of course, to go on and take the course at 
Langres, and climb along as opportunity offers, but somehow I didn't 
like the idea of retreating under fire as it were, so long as these fine 
fellows said that I could help them by staying. The C. in C. has 
done me the great honor to request that . . . [deleted by 
Censor]. I hope to be allowed to tell you out loud some day. In 
the meantime these are difficult days for your old man, darn 
difficult. . . . 

Your last letter was of April 10, and much has happened since then. 
My thoughts are pretty well filled with the building up of our Army 
everywhere in France as an effective force, now that the long intermi- 
nable period of creation, instruction, and organization is passing into 
one of action. I see that T. R., bless him, says we must have 5 mil- 
lions and be ready with 5 millions more. So we must, and I am 
thrilled by the accounts cabled over to the London and Paris papers 
of the change and progress and apparent determination at home. 
Hurry, Hurry, faster, faster the voice still cries out to me. . . . 

Did you know we are all asked to write a letter home on Mother's 
Day! Every day is Mother's Day for me. 

This was by General Pershing's order. 

Following message from Commander-in-Chief is transmitted for 
your information and guidance: 

"To all Commanding Officers I wish that every officer and soldier 
of the American Expeditionary Forces would write a letter home on 
' Mother's Day.' This is a little thing for each one to do. But these 
letters will carry back our courage and our affection to the patriotic 
women whose love and prayers inspire us and cheer us on to victory. 

"Pershing. 

"Inform all concerned in your command." 

This is my third letter on Mother's Day . . . and I suppose 
you have seen the General's telegram quoted above. Simple, homely 



374 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

things like this mean much over here, and there will be no skeptical 
smile as there might have been in the old days of the old false atmos- 
phere, false pride and fool's paradise. I have no time to scribble to- 
day and nothing really to tell you except that / love you on Mother's 
Day, and every day is Mother's Day for me. 

Colonel Bacon meant to keep his promise to think of the 
simple things. He may have thought of them, but he failed, 
it must be admitted, to write of them, that is to say, to write 
only of them. On May nth, "Mother's Day" as he con- 
tinued to call it, he wrote: 

Mother's Day indeed . . . and in spite of the perplexities and 
anxieties that beset your old boy, your oldest son, he is sending you a 
line without a single complaint, and "thinking Mother dear of you, 
and will try to cheer his comrades and be gay." He is rather ashamed 
of having allowed himself to write a doleful line yesterday on Mother's 
Day, so on Mother's Day to-day he will try to be as brave as Mother 
is. No one could be as brave as you. . . . 

What are you and your babies doing to-day? I like to think that 
you are out in the sunshine with some of them. It is cold and driz- 
zling here. Are you in the country, or still in Park Avenue? You 
say Murphy is trying to sell ponies. Good! I didn't know he had 
any left. Of course sell them or better "put them away," all except 
old Ribbons, unless he is dead. He ought to have got rid of them 
long ago, except those that are good for ploughing, and work in harness. 
How would it do to ask George to write me all about things at West- 
bury, farm, stable, houses, etc., and a very rough estimate of cost. 

How is little ChieP and our other little friends. HaVe you any left 
and what became of Raksha, the she wolf? Beo never came back! 
I hope you went on to stay with Bob and Virginia. I should much 
like to hear of them. Tell Virginia I had a call from her Cousin 
Murray, the King's Messenger, who had seen Cecil. Heaps of love to 
them all. 

And on May 15th: 

Your dear letter of the 14th came day before yesterday and Sister's 
of the 17th to-day, so I feel a little better in touch with you, although a 
month is a long, long time, and since you wrote another tremendous 
phase of the battle has come, and thank God, is past. The blessed 
"thin line" has again held against overwhelming odds, has again 

'Mrs. Bacon's little Scotch terrier. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 375 

saved the world from the dastardly, unspeakable Hun. You may 
well say that these wonderful British are magnificent. No words of 
mine can begin to express my admiration for them, and what they 
have done and my gratitude — and now they are ready to do it again, 
and the splendid French soldiers are with them, shoulder to shoulder. 
Would to Heaven we were ready to play our part! We are here 
though and we are coming strong every day, and the announcement 
by the Sec'y of War that already there are 500,000 Americans in 
France has had a splendid effect and given heart to many who were 
beginning to wonder whether there really was to be an American 
Army — but mind you I think we have accomplished unhoped-for 
and extraordinary results and with very little inevitable delay, and 
now what you say of conditions at home gives me the greatest en- 
couragement for the future, if only the superb stout wall will hold a 
few months more, and I have supreme faith and confidence that it 
will. On 7u passera pas! And after that, on les aura! It will not, 
it cannot be permitted that the blight and curse of this monstrous 
thing, this giant octopus, this loathsome devil-fish shall seize the 
world and impose its degradation. Why do I write these things, 
when I mean to commune with you and smile, and think of pleasant, 
happier times and places! 

Mrs. Bacon had written of Caspar and Elliot, who were de- 
tailed as Instructors. Colonel Bacon writes as any one on the 
other side would about such "a calamity": 

I think the hard luck of Gap and Ett is almost too much to bear, 
just because they are gunners, and better than the others. It will be 
cruel if poor G. is condemned to another term at Fort Sill and I can 
just imagine Ett's disappointment and disgust at the sudden change 
of plan and orders, which keeps him waiting on the dock as it were, 
and worse still that they have drafted away so many of his best men. 
I think that is the last straw ! All their fortitude and highest qualities 
will be brought out by this severe and heartbreaking test. My litde 
personal troubles are insignificant as compared to theirs, and mine 
are almost too much for me these days, although my eagles are gone. 
If I can only hold on to my gold leaves and even my Q. M. insignia 
with credit, and can be kept on to work for those who want me and 
not canned and sent home to eat my heart out, in some subordinate 
quartermaster's job, I shall count myself lucky after all for an old 
"has been." 

I was afraid, and told you so, that it was too good to be true, that I 
was too happy. Such things seldom last in the Army but I will smile 



376 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

and take my medicine, and only wish I could do something to help the 
boys. It is humiliating to be so utterly powerless, but never mind. 
. . . We must all cheer up and we will win out in the end. 

Between the 15th and i6th of May he learned that the 
youngest son, Elliot, married to Hope Norman, and therefore 
called "Hope's hope" to pass the censor, had arrived in 
France. 

May 16, '18. 

To show you how little we know ... of what is going on, I 
heard only yesterday of the arrival in the South of Hope's hope! It 
may be a long time before I can get there, but I shall try you may be 
sure, and sometimes unexpectedly news travels fast, and I may hear 
some news for Hope. Is poor old G. still eating his heart out at Ft. 
Sill, and Bob? His work must be very useful. What do they say of 
his Chief? Tell Hope that I got her nice letter yesterday and thank 
her for it. Dear little Soul, I suppose it is pretty lonely at the 
cottage. I wish I could see her and her little red-headed girl. I 
wish we had a dozen of them! 

You will surely get some relaxation and pleasure in your garden. 

I can see you and Chiel by the hedges and in the wet grass at 

six in the morning. It will be a relief for you and a wee bit of comfort. 

I am off this morning to visit some Americans. This absurdly over- 
done secrecy forbids my saying who. Do you remember Alex 
Lehmann's wife's uncle in the Philippines?^ 

Later. — Had a fine day in the sunshine with a nice Brig.-Gen. who 
is [scratched out]. 

Everything is going wrong with me, and I am quite disgusted so I 
am going to bed. 

On May 17th Colonel Bacon sent a photograph and the 
description which he gives of himself suggests anything but 
what he was. 

Here is a beautiful picture . . . taken on a day when the 
future looked very black and the present pretty nearly impossible. 

The war and time have made their mark, but here I am in all my 
nakedness, a gray-headed, sour-faced old man with a beautiful mouth! 

iThe reference is to Major General William M. Wright, Commanding 35th Division, 
and later Third, Fifth, and Seventh Corps of the A. E. F. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 377 

Aren't you sorry you asked me to send you my mug! I am going 
to send you another in a few days, more beautiful still with all the lines 
but I don't want to give you too much of a shock. 

I have had unhappy hours lately, but on the whole I am taking my 
medicine pretty well and my only regret is that you and the children, 
and my friends (are there a few who remember me) may wonder why 
I am again a Major having been a camouflage Colonel, and think that 
I have failed. Well, I guess I have from a military and worldly point 
of view, and I have dropped from quite a pinnacle, a sadder and a 
wiser man. It must be good for me. It hurts all right, and the fact 
that it hurts shows that I am not made of the right stuflf. Forgive 
me ... for being such a baby and whimpering about my poor, 
miserable affairs at such a time as this, but I can't speak of the one big 
thing — waiting! We are all waiting and the calm is ominous. 

On May 31st, Colonel Bacon wrote of the coming of American 
troops and of visiting three American divisions on Decoration 
Day, the 30th; 

The tears are very near the surface these days when I think of you, 
and again when I greet the inpouring stream of American soldiers, as 
I do every day now, but do you remember what you will find engraven 
upon my heart? 

We have arrived again at an intense and vitally critical moment in 
the battle — in all our lives — the third phase since March 21st. March 
28th brought relief and respite.^ April 29th brought it again, and 
floods of destruction of everything we hold dear and holy were stop- 
ped. To-day is the 5th day of this phase, and they shall not pass ^ and 
Oh God! send our Divisions quickly, quickly, that they may play 
their part, and sanctify by Thy pity the blessed tears of our beloved 
ones at home! 

Yesterday was Decoration Day, almost a holiday for our training 
divisions. I went with a high officer [Sir Douglas Haig], to whose 
personal staff I am attached, to visit three of our divisions [27th, 30th, 
and 35th], and my heart was full of emotion and pride. You have 
seen them. You know how you felt when they walked up 5th 
Avenue. How do you suppose I felt, or that you must feel if you saw 

^The reference is to the holding of the lines in front of Amiens after the unified com- 
mand. The second phase began April 9th, between La Bassee and Armentieres. 
On April 29th the Germans were severely beaten by the British and French in their 
attack on Meteren and Voormezeele. This operation, extending over twenty days, is 
called the Battle of the Lys. 

The third phase, to which Colonel Bacon refers, was the Third Battle of the Aisne, 
ending on June 2nd. As Colonel Bacon said, they did not pass. 



378 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

them here standing at attention with the bugle sounding the salute — 
here in France at last? Do you wonder that my heart, was in my 
mouth, and that I could not speak and see? . , . 

A year has gone! somewhere! since I sailed away. Good-bye for 
to-day. 

Here are three scrappy letters — much like those written 
from France under similar circumstances except that there is 
a personal note in the one of June 5th: 

May 31st, '18. 
The same Mother's Day. 

I never tell you anything you want to know. I seem to be tongue- 
tied and witless when I seize a moment to write. Elliot I have not 
seen and as things are at present there is not the slightest chance of 
my seeing him for a long time. He is training far away. 

Sunday June 2nd. "Mother's Day." 

So much is happening and I am powerless to tell you anything. 

June 5th. I can hardly believe it but three more days have gone 
and every day I think that I must say a word to you to-day, and then 
the day is gone and I fall into bed — never till after midnight — dead 
tired with the emotion — the hopes and doubts and chagrins, and dis- 
appoinisments. . . . 

For these past six months I have known the truth of what was 
going to happen as I have never known it before. I can say to you 
. . . but not to the world that my vision has been clear. . . . 

I went to a "promotional party" the other night — the first momen- 
tary relaxation I have given way to. 11 at dinner in a neighboring 
town 25 miles away — an American Staff — and after dinner a private 
vaudeville show by a British Divisional Company, which was really 
good — two men taking part of girls, etc. — ^just foolish. Such things 
help a little to let go the handlebars. 

June 8th was indeed "Mother's Day" for Colonel Bacon 
received three letters from Mrs. Bacon and one from Elliot. 

So my poor day was brightened up — and it was a poor day, but 
to-day is a little better because some of the complications and disap- 
pointments of yesterday have been straightened out, but I care so 
much that everything American shall go right that when they go wrong 
it seems as if I could not bear it. Perhaps I care too much, but it is my 
only way, as you know of old, and everything is so intense, of such 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 379 

vital importance that everyone is pretty well keyed up to concert 
pitch. 

You ask me how I am — how I am standing it! Pretty well I 
think . . . to be perfectly honest for an old fellow of my years and 
infirmities, although I am getting very white and furrowed — grizzled 
and wrinkled, but that does not disturb me a bit and I find that I can 
keep it up day and night, week in and week out as well as the fellows 
who are twenty years younger, so I'll play the game as long as I can, 
and die in harness perhaps. 

I don't sleep as much or as soundly as I used to, but why should 
I! Rather a troubled sleep from about 12:30 to 7. I try not to eat 
and drink too much but have hard work keeping my belt from getting 
too tight and no exercise, but never stopping from 7 till midnight, and 
taking things pretty hard, for my fund of sympathy seems inexhausti- 
ble. I am suddenly breaking- off here to dine with my new Chief 
("in one sense of the word"). General Harts, 

{Later) The lights go out at eleven now so I haven't many minutes 
before I shall be left in darkness with nowhere to go but home to 
Brunehautpre to bed. 

I have been afraid of losing my nice little place in the country, for 
the French mission wanted to turn me out, but to-day it is settled. I 
think that I can keep it, and I am glad because I always have a place 
for American officers, and I have also asked some British officers to 
come and live with me because they are ordered out of town. 

I am going to try to let go the handlebars a little . . . because 
I think if I do, I can last longer. I am going to try to have my nice 
friends to dinner and pretend that I am not unhappy. Remember 
my Irish motto, " Keep on smiling, and keep your rifle clean." I have 
bought some red and white wine from an old Abbe and my old goose is 
getting facter, so that it is almost time to have him killed for dinner, 
and we really live on the fat of the land — much too well as a matter of 
fact, as the canteen and the American Q. M. stores provide many 
extras — canned vegetables, corn, hominy, beans, etc.; and plenty of 
canned fruit. So what with occasional roast pork from the neighbor- 
ing villages and veal (always good) young Clark (my batman) and I 
manage to set a pretty tasty table, with June roses and honeysuckle and 
carnations and peonies and weigela (the lilacs are gone) all of which 
I love because they always remind me of you. I know your Garden 
Club party was a great success. Keep up the nice old simple things 
that you love so well. Keep up your weeding and squirting, and the 
joy you get out of them will be your greatest asset. Break away 
from your strenuous, tense, anxious life. You and I must both do it, 
each in our way for each other's sake. 

We must not break down and I realize that it is even harder for you 



38o ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

than for me, but we have much to live for . . . ten years to- 
gether, if all goes well, whether of joy or sorrow, but ten more years 
together 'tis all I ask or dare to hope for. 

June i8, *i8. 
Mother's Day. 

The anniversary of Waterloo [1815] and yesterday was Bunker Hill 
[1775]. The last week has slipped by, hectic, thrilling, emotional for 
me, hopeful and depressed in succession and each day busier and fuller 
than the last, so that I haven't had a moment to write. . . . 

I haven't heard again from Ett, but I know pretty well where he 
has been, down near Bordeaux, which is about as far away as New 
York. He must be just about starting to join his division, very near 
where I went once to celebrate an anniversary in a little town [Saint- 
Die] far away. You did not go but you must remember, Ett wrote 
that he had no saddle equipment so I got everything for him yesterday 
in Paris, where I found myself for an hour or so de passage — saddle, 
bridle, etc., which I had packed in a basket and shall despatch as soon 
as I know just where to send it. This is about the best I could do for 
him for a birthday present. I had a great run to G. H. Q., through 
the night to Paris and then on at 4 a. m., arriving at 9:30 to pass the 
day, and back again through the night for a few hours on important 
matters in Paris again, and back here to report later the next after- 
noon, about 1000 kilometres in all and very successful, although my 
heart was sinking with misgivings till to-day when it was all over and 
something accomplished. 

I have had one or two splendid days of late with our divisions — 772y 
divisions,^ God bless them, and if ever a man was pleased and proud 
and thrilled with emotion as I ride about with the C. in C. to inspect 
them, and when after a regimental review of Dan Appleton's old 7th 
regiment, with machine gun battalions added, some 7000 in all, with 
the 7th regt. band, the British officers say to each other, "Why, they 
are as the guards!" You can imagine how I feel and with what a full 



'General Pershing naturally desired that the American Army should be fought as a 
whole. He therefore contemplated the withdrawal from the British Army of American 
Divisions which had been attached to it. 

On June 3, 191 8, it was agreed that five of the ten divisions should be withdrawn 
to support the French. Of the five remaining, two were withdrawn, leaving the 27th, 
30th and 33rd. {See Final Report of General Pershing, p. 23'-, ^'^ Douglas Haig's Com- 
mand, December ig, 79/5, to November 11, IQ18, by George A. B. Dewar assisted by 
Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Boraston, vol. ii (1922), pp. 280-281). 

Colonel Bacon had been the intermediary between Sir Douglas Haig and General 
Pershing, and he naturally felt a personal as well as an official pride in the outcome. 
He here refers affectionately to the American troops attached to the British Army. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 381 

heart I stand up behind the C. in C. to salute the Stars and 
Stripes! . 

Sometimes I leave with the C. in C. at 9 — Sergeant Daniels and the 
Rolls Royce following, till we arrive at the area of a blessed American 
division, where we find horses waiting — then two hours' inspection 
of the minutest kind, then lunch in a green shady place by the road- 
side, from a wonderful basket that has seen more service and could 
tell more secrets of this war since August, 1914, than any other basket 
or soldier, then on again to another division, where new horses are 
waiting, and where I meet many familiar faces from home, and choke 
with deep feeling when I speak to them, then back toward home till 
we meet our own horses and ride back to dinner at 8, 10 miles more 
across the fields — then in to the office and the telephone after dinner 
till midnight. 

The lights went out on Colonel Bacon, the candle was low 
and he went to bed with the letter unfinished. He took it up 
three days later, June 21st, the "longest day in the year": 

Your dear letter of the 26th May came to-day — the day I sailed 
away or rather it was Monday the 28th that I actually sailed and. Oh! 
what a year! It seems a lifetime. How I long to get back to you! 
and if we can only be together for 5 years after the •war. I said ten 
years in one of my letters to you, but now I'd compromise for 5! 
if it could only be ended right. 

You speak of your long days. We have daylight now till 10 o'clock 
and the twilights are lovely, and the June roses on my dining table 
always speak of you. I love to hear all about your garden. 

The next letter is dated "June 25th": 

It's always too late, or there is some interruption, or I am called 
oflF — and I never seem to have a minute to myself to talk to you all the 
things that are constantly in my mind and heart and on my tongue. 
The telephone is ringing in my ear at this minute and I have had two 
conversations since I began this page, and the church clock is striking 
10:45 ^"'^ ^^ eleven the lights go out and there is not even a candle, so 
you will understand why I write you such scrappy unsatisfactory 
scrawls, although every day all the time I have so many big wonderful 
things to say to you! and interesting things to describe to you. I 
am terribly disappointed not to have the smallest chance to see 
Elliot. Bv the merest chance his division was ordered far away, al- 



382 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

though it might have been here right at my door. How I shall get to 
him I really do not know, but I will some day. 

You will have had my letter by Col. Hewitt which I hope will ex- 
plain a little what has happened to me. It is all right if it only lasts, 
but I am on tenter-hooks all the time. 

Such a nice dinner to-night at my Chief's enjamilley and the talk 
was of pleasant things, not war, and the daylight lasted till ten o'clock. 

In April Colonel Bacon had received a letter from his former 
colleagues of the Corporation of Harvard that the degree of 
Doctor of Laws had been voted him and in a few lines of the 
letter of June 25th he again expresses regret that the degree 
was not conferred upon him in his absence. 

These last few days I have been hoping against hope that I might 
receive a cable from Lawrence Lowell saying that they had given me 
something "in absentia," but no such luck and you won't mention it 
to any one. 

I had a cable asking me if I could be there on the 20th to receive a 
degree, but he might as well have asked me for the moon, and he must 
have known it. I would have been proud and happy to have it as you 
know. 

June 26th . . . It is a tragedy that I cannot go to find Ett 
who is probably far away in the mountains by this time, or on his way. 
Poor little Hope. Her trials are coming early. Guy was made of the 
right stuff.^ He was lucky not to have to hang on — an invalid. It's 
better to die in harness. 

He evidently despaired of ending this letter many tirnes 
begun but never finished. "I am called away," he says again, 
and signs it. 

The letter of June 28th recounts a characteristic example 
of that kindly consideration which he advocated between na- 
tions: 

There seems to be an ominous calm . . . and sails are furled, 
and everything made snug for the coming storm, but, before it breaks 
let us think of pleasant things and simple and loving and homely. 
You and your garden . . . and your cunning stone steps and 

^The reference is to her father, Guy Norman, who had entered the Navy from civil 
life in the war with Spain, who entered it again in the war with Germany, and who 
had just died in the service. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 383 

your columbines, and your sheep on the lawn and your roses, I too 
have roses, and carnations, and honeysuckle, and spirea, and lupine, 
and elder blossoms, and ramblers are over the house, and my May 
tree, which you in your ignorance would call a pink thorn, and now 
the strawberries have come, big round white strawberries, et "out 
cest moi Monsieur qui les soigne, et recueille moi-tneme, et les legumes 
aussi, des petits pois, des carotteSy des onions, des haricots. Vous en 
aurez tant que Monsieur le Colonel voudra. Oui ilfaut que je me leve 
de bonne heure, ?nais pas avant cinq heures. Oui faurai soixante- 
quinze ans le 2^ juillet, etfai des abeilles aussi. J'avais trois ruches, et 
maintenant f en ai neuf. Le Colonel voudra du miel: mais pas avant le 
mois de Septembre. Elks mangent le Sucre des trefles pendant /'///." 
And all because last winter when she was sick, I sent her a couple 
of bottles of port wine. 

Everything may change in one day or it may go on 14 years, and I 
shall be gone, but every day is crowded and every hour. Yes, to-day 
I had all day with troops, and I was crazy about them. Nothing I 
enjoy so much as to go about amongst them when they are having 
supper, or when they are training or marching, or when, as last eve- 
ning, there was presentation of colors at "retreat," and they were all 
lined up at attention, and the bugle sounded colors, and then the 
wonderful band in a little enclosed court by the old brick house, 
covered with vines, played the "Star-Spangled Banner," and I at 
salute. Well, you know what I did ! 

The next letter, full of stirring events, pride at American 
achievement, sorrow at American losses, and sympathy with 
the grief-stricken at home, is written from London, on July 6th: 

Where do you suppose I am . . . ! You can't guess. No. 41, 
Upper Grosvenor Street, to be sure, having just arrived this evening 
all of a sudden with my present Chief and his other A. D. C's for 
several days, and I hardly recognize myself. I am staying with 
General Biddle and Lloyd Griscom, the latter having invited me to 
make myself at home here whenever I came and you may be sure I was 
glad to have this nice home to go to, for if ever there was a lonely place 
for me it is London, not a cat that I ever saw before. . . . 

My cable told you that I had missed Elliot. It was pretty sad for 
I made a big effort and travelled hard for two days and nights to sur- 
prise him on his birthday, but although I found his General com- 
manding the division, who is very friendly and kind, the artillery 
had not arrived, so I left my little saddle box, or rather big basket, 
which I had strapped on behind the Rolls Royce, and started back 



384 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

for Paris by way of Chaumont, where I passed the night with my 
Bishop, the second night by the way for I had stopped there the night 
before. He is splendid, and wonderful as ever, and it did me no harm 
to kneel with him twice after breakfast and pray for you and to get 
back to you. 

I arrived back at my little home in the North last night and started 
with my perfectly charming Chief to-day and here I am feeling as if I 
had been whisked about in a whirlwind for the last five days, and 
so much has happened, and is happening, and it seems to my poor old 
weary heart as if it were almost the continuation of my dreams and 
hopes of the last four years. Could anything be finer than the record 
of our American troops these last few days! First came Seicheprey 
then Cantigny and Chateau Thierry and the Bois de Belleau, and 
Bouresches and Vaux, and now Hamel with the Australians, and the 
world is ringing with their praises, and a great load seems to be lifted 
after the depression and discouragement of a few weeks ago, and hope 
springs again that we may yet be in time.^ 

I hardly dare to write it for I know the awful danger still hanging 
over the world — but he cannot, shall not do it! The hateful, loath- 
some Hun can no more succeed and prevail in the end than can the 
ages be set back, and all things good and spiritual and honorable and 
decent be swept away and dashed from man's soul. It is not to be! 

The price will be awful, staggering, but the world will emerge better, 
decenter, and who can say that all the tears and agony shall have been 
in vain? 



^The first considerable American skirmish was at Seicheprey, on April 26th, "a 
score for the Germans but a credit to the fighting spirit of the Yankees." Frank H. 
Simonds' History of the World War, vol. v (1920), p. 187. 

The First Division, on May 28th, "captured the important observation stations on 
the heights of Cantigny with splendid dash . . . The desperate efforts of the Ger- 
mans gave the fighting at Cantigny a seeming tactical importance entirely out of 
proportion to the numbers involved. 

"The third German offensive on May 27, against the French on the Aisne, soon 
developed a desperate situation for the Allies. The Second Division, then in reserve 
northwest of Paris and preparing to relieve the First Division, was hastily diverted to 
the vicinity of Meaux on May 31, and, early on the morning of June i, was deployed 
across the Chateau-Thierry-Paris road near Montreuil-aux-Lions in a gap in the French 
line, where it stopped the German advance on Paris. At the same time the partially 
trained Third Division was placed at French disposal to hold the crossings of the 
Marne, and its motorized machine-gun battalion succeeded in reaching Chateau 
Thierry in time to assist in successfully defending that river crossing. 

"The enemy having been halted, the Second Division commenced a series of vigorous 
attacks on June 4, which resulted in the capture of Belleau Wood after very severe 
fighting. The village of Bouresches was taken soon after, and on July i Vaux was 
captured. In these operations the Second Division met with most desperate resistance 
by Germany's best troops." Final Report oj General Pershing to the Secretary of War, 
September /, igig, pp. 32-33. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 385 

As for "our country" over here. It makes me catch my breath 
these last three days to see and hear the acclaim, the admiration, the 
hope that are in every man's heart in France and in England. Amer- 
ica's flags not only in every house in Paris and London for the 4th, but 
in every village all the way across France. 

Can you imagine how near the tears of joy have been in my poor old 
throat and eyes, and I am not even ashamed of my weakness. . . . 

Hamel and Vaux and Cantigny and Belleau Wood and Chateau 
Thierry may not be considered big affairs, but I know thousands of 
mothers, aye, and fathers too whose hearts have stood still as they 
braced themselves for the blow, and this and the splendid courage and 
sacrifice of those lads lying out there in the woods and wheatfields, or 
smiling in their pain at the hospital tell the story of an awakened 
national soul — and it is well. . , . 

I am glad to have been so close officially to two great leaders of 
these armies, two gallant gentlemen. I wish I could write the story 
of it for Benny and the others, and my appreciation. I am only too 
proud to "stand and wait" in the humble background with my 
Major's gold leaves, which my Bishop wears now too, not wears for he 
is allowed to wear the cross, but he is a Major. 

By the way, he and another of God's noblemen, Ireland,^ are coming 
to spend next Tuesday night with me at Brunehautpre if I get back, 
and if not I shall see them here. It is a great privilege to have two such 
friends, and I feel a little less lonely when I am with them, and Sir 
Douglas too, one of the finest in the world, and the sweetest thing, 
gentleness and consideration personified. They are all awfully nice 
to me, and as for General Pershing ! Didn't you think his letter to me 
was better than a decoration! 

■ The fourteenth day of July found him again in London, 
"Still in London" as he puts it. To the little town in the 
north of France he turns with longing: 

I am leaving to-morrow morning at 7:15 when the faithful Frank 
Hodson- is coming for me . . . and I shall be mighty glad to get 
back to France, and the atmosphere of the armies. 

I have been uneasy every minute here in London, and while it has 
been a good thing for me to be here under the circumstances, and I 
have seen many important people I am thankful to go. . . . 

iMajor-General Merritte W. Ireland, (1867- ). Surgeon General of the United 
States (1918- ). 

^Francis Hodson, connected with the American Embassy in London for more than 
thirty years. 



386 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

The only real day that I have had here was in the country at Sir D. 
Haig's. I saw the baby and as it was their wedding day I gave him 
a little silver mug. . . . 

It has seemed so unreal my being here at this time when the sus- 
pense and uncertainty are so great that I have hated it, although 
Griscom and General Biddle have been kindness itself, and everybody 
is much finer than ever before, and of course I have been proud to be 
an American. All the world is looking to us now. God grant that 
we shall make good. 

Colonel Bacon left London in the morning as planned and he 
celebrates his return "home" by putting "Dimanche" at the 
top of the letter and "Back again" in English: 

Just a single line to-night ... to tell you that I have arrived 
back [home] having started early this morning, as I told you in my 
scrawl of last night from 41 Upper Grosvenor Street. The suspense 
and expectation is still hanging over and to-day our French friend 
[Foch] spoke of what might happen at t\\t poindre du jour. 

(Interrupted again ! confound it, and the lights are going out in five 
minutes.) I am glad to be back but my trip to London has unsettled 
me a little, and I am homesicker than ever. 

As long as I can go on from day to day in my groove, thinking of my 
target of the day, and shutting out as much as possible all the rest of 
it, I seem to be able to stand it and make up my mind not to think . . . 

There is no rest, no respite, no let-up, till it is all over, and my 
prayer and hope is that we may last it out, you and I, and get together 
again. 

On July 22nd he writes from Paris: 

For the last four days proudness, if there is such a word, not pride, 
has over-shadowed, or at least modified everything real! 

We are coming into our own ... we have risen hundreds of 
per cent, in the eyes and estimation of all the world, for we are be- 
ginning to show and prove that as a whole, as a people, as a nation, 
at last, we are made of the right stuff. Let us be very humble, very 
modest, but for the doubters, the critics, the stupidly jealous, or the 
overbearing and insolent, let us rub their noses in the dirt. 

I spent nearly all day yesterday with our American wounded at 
Neuilly at the Ambulance Americaine! bless its heart, and blessings 
to you dear, brave loyal soul, to whom it owes so much of its life and 
power for good. You would have wept with me ... as I 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 387 

talked to one after another of the modest heroes of this last fight, 
and you would have thanked God for the privilege of seeing and know- 
ing it all in spite of the heart-rending sorrow and agony. Then I 
had an hour with General Pershing before I came up through the 
night encouraged and chastened and full of determination to do^ to 
doy that is as far as an old cripple can do whose power for action is 
gone. 

I had a delightful and for me thrilling visit yesterday with Ted 
and Eleanor and Archie and Dick Derby at the Blake hospital, and 
as I had my maps and things, informally I was able to tell them 
a lot of things. And I have cabled Theodore to-day about it, and that 
my heart goes out to him and Mrs. Roosevelt, for I am afraid Quentin 
will never come back. Ted has won golden opinions from the whole 
Army, and Genl. P[ershing] himself told me last night with much feel- 
ing that Ted had made good, a hundred times over, and deserved 
promotion. A soldier can say no more. Tell Theodore, and Archie 
too came in for his share, and Quentin. I saw Theodore's simple 
words in the paper: That he was glad the boy had had the chance and 
privilege of doing something in the service of his country.^ 

Think of the Lycee Pasteur crammed from top to bottom, corri- 
dors, every inch of available space, big tents and huts in the yard and 
in front, where the automobiles used to stand — doctors, nurses 
operating, operating all day and all night till they are worn out. 

A very large proportion of all the wounds are not dangerous, in 
fact extremely light. 1200 beds are ready, and there are plenty for 
the French, who also have all the 1300 or 1400 in the outside houses 
and institutions in the neighborhood where they are evacuated as 
soon as they can be moved There is a big Red Cross hospital at 
Longchamps on the race course, and Blake's is full to overflowing. 

Juilly has grown up to a thousand beds, or at least 700 already, and 
may well be increased without limit by using the grounds. The 
Red Cross has taken it over, and it is ideally located as you know. 
I am very proud that you have kept on and have supplied all the funds 
without calling upon the Red Cross and I never tire of telling every- 
body. I told Genl. Pershing again last night, and I shall repeat it 
to everyone. ... Go right ahead if you want to, but the Red 
Cross will step in, whenever you like, but don't hesitate to keep it up 
if it is not too much work. I don't see how you do it. You are 
certainly a wonder. 

'Theodore, Jr., promoted Lieutenant-Colonel of Infantry, "Archie" a Major, "Dick"' 
Derby a son-in-law and Surgeon in the Army, and Quentin represented the Roose- 
velts in the Army. Kermit was with the British in Mesopotamia. Quentin, of the 
Aviation Corps, battling in the air for cause and country, fell and never came back, as 
Mr. Bacon feared, and he lies where he fell in France. 



388 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Again he writes from Paris, July 23rd: 

Just a hurried line. . . . This is Tuesday and you may re- 
member I left here Sunday night (Interrupted here by the arrival 
of Sir Douglas and his Chief of Staff — I am dining with them and 
with General Pershing in half an hour). ... I shall be back again 
up North in a few days, perhaps to-morrow night, so you see my days 
are mouvementes. 

The European commanders were of course delighted to have 
a steady supply of American troops and their mere presence 
gave confidence and steadied the lines at the front. Were they 
fit for the front, that is, could they be used interchangeably with 
the seasoned European troops? The conduct of "our boys" 
as we lovingly call them at Chateau Thierry — to take but a 
single instance — answered the question. 

^ July 27th, '18. 

I can just picture your New York headlines this last week, and the 
thrills which you must have been having over the glowing accounts 
of the fighting of our divisions, although it makes your heart, as it 
does mine, sick, sick. You think from my letters that I am over- 
wrought. I am steady . . . especially in action. My nerve 
is all right and I can do the day's work, day after day, with any of 
these youngsters. I couldn't run or walk or fight at speed as I 
have always been able to do. My chief fault is that I eat too much 
for my belt is getting tight again and I must take myself in hand. 
My three days away with the C. in C. were intensely interesting as 
you can imagine, but I am restless and want to get away again to 
the divisions. If I had gone to the staff school early in July, I might 
be looking forward now perhaps to some definite staff job with a 
division, but without the training of the school there is no chance 
of it, as they don't want outsiders like me. Don't think me 
over-wrought . . . for I am afraid you mean by that that 
I have lost my grip or my nerve or my courage or something. 
Of course there are days when things look black and when I am 
so homesick that I can hardly bear it. ... I keep on smiling 
outwardly, but what's the use of pretending that I am not sad and 
lonely. 

Hooper sent me a Harvard Bulletin yesterday and I see the names 
of honorary degrees at Commencement. I should have liked to be 
there with Reading, but of course I could not have asked for and would 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 389 

not have been granted leave to go to the U. S. Can you imagine my 
asking for it! for, although I may be of very little use, I was on duty 
and Lawrence Lowell must have known that it was out of the ques- 
tion. I appreciate their asking me, however, and hope I shall one 
day have the opportunity of seeing my two old friends, Major Higgin- 
son and Doctor Walcott, before they go. 

I have tried several times to get copies of Root's addresses, but 
could not do so either in Paris or London. I should have bought 
many copies for certain of my friends. 

Tell Jamesie that he would do well to speak to Mr. Lane about it 
and see if the books cannot be better advertised, and put on sale 
over here. Surely Brentano and Hatchard ought to be able to get 
them. 

I saw Freddy Coudert who told me that Jamesie is happier now 
that he has a more definite job at the State Department. 

I have been hoping to hear that General Snow was ordered abroad 
as you indicated might happen but have heard nothing. 

I am still waiting for news of any move by the 77th Division, and I 
have had no more letters ^rom the boy. I may possibly get as far as 
McCoy's division before long. I should certainly like an excuse. 
It is cold and rainy now and August is almost here. Think of it! 
The days getting shorter and another winter staring us in the face, 
although I still have snapdragons and what Clark calls "love-in-a- 
mist" on my breakfast table, and to-day had the last of the old 
lady's raspberries and currants mixed, and last night had a goose- 
berry tart. 

Mrs. Bacon's letter of June 26th contained a statement that 
one of his friends thought him "tense." Colonel Bacon answers 
on July 30th, admitting the charge: 

So Dwight Morrow says I am "tense." Well, I think I am, 
although I don't know just what he means, I am certainly intense 
in my feelings, and sympathies, and I am glad of it. I wonder if he 
would have called me tense to-day when I gave to Captain H. H. 
Davies of the Medical Corps the Distinguished Service Cross awarded 
him by General Pershing, the first I believe to be awarded, a modest 
fellow who was gallant in action in January, for which he was recom- 
mended. He was in the thick of the battle on March 2ist, was 
wounded, kept on in spite of his wounds, till he had to give up, went 
away to hospital and just turned up to-day. Do you think I was 
tense when I read him the following with a lump in my throat and 
nearly broke down: "The Commander-in-Chief desires that you 



390 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

notify Lieut. Davies that he has awarded him the Distinguished 
Service Cross for his gallant conduct on January 8th, when under 
continuous shell fire he entered a dugout, which had been blown in, 
and attended to the occupants. This included an amputation and 
consequent saving of a man's life. The conduct was all the more 
praiseworthy as the shelling was continuous all the time." 

"By command of Gen'l Pershing." 

I admit that I am moved by these things. I am glad I am. And 
if some of our friends had been a little more "tense" for the last two 
or three years, we should not be where we are now. 

Sunday, August 4th, was a day of rest, in that Colonel 
Bacon found time to begin and end a long letter at a single 
sitting: 

It is Mother's Day again ... if that means that I am going 
to try to set down a few things on this paper, but there's never a day 
that I do not formulate in my mind a lot of sentences and paragraphs 
for you and then the day has gone, the lights are out at eleven and I 
sleep a tired sleep till seven, when I have to jump to begin another 
and keep jumping all day. I arrived back from Paris again yester- 
day, and am going again to-morrow, and in the back of my head is 
a thought that I may sneak away again to-morrow to see Elliot, who 
is expected to be arriving within reach. 

I went out to see some of the others two days ago, especially 
McCoy whose division has been performing wonders and covering 
themselves and all of us with glory this last week. Was anything 
ever more thrilling and wonderful than the accounts of the way our 
men have turned the tide in the nick of time. No comment of mine 
can begin to describe my feelings of the last two weeks. Have a 
telephone call bidding me dine to-night with the C. in C. . 
Since lunch I have been to II Corps H. Q. many miles away where I 
had a good visit with the C. O. and the C. of S. both of whom are 
corkers. . . . 

It was in a hollow square of troops and officers of G. H. Q. The 
smartest looking lot you can imagine, with the military band playing 
the hymns and the W. A. A. C.'s in line too and three drums on a 
little platform in the middle and the C. in C. and his staff out a 
little in front of his officers, and just the short sweet service which I 
enclose . . . and you were in my mind and heart all through, 
and I was not ashamed of my few tears as I sang the hymns. 

There was a great splendid service and march past this morning 
out at the ist Army, but I couldn't go to both. Nearly 10,000 men 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 391 

attended in the open, English, Scotch, Australians, Canadians, South 
Africans, and Americans! . . . You think I am weak and over- 
wrought and tense . . . and I do feel these things deeply, but I 
am glad I do, although I am old. Perhaps I am sensitive, too much 
so, and care too much about what my chiefs and others in authority 
think of me. It is a disappointment of course not to have made 
good for almost the first time in my life, but why should I have ex- 
pected to at my age. My qualities are not of the stern stuff neces- 
sary for fighting one's way up, with very little consideration for 
others, and you know too well how I have always suffered for lack 
of self-confidence and self-assurance. 

The Army takes you pretty much at your own valuation and hasn't 
time to waste. In time I could win out — even at my age, but there 
isn't time. Never mird, I am not grouchy or despondent over it, 
and "play up" pretty well, if I do say it. 

We have another change here, which will make things harder — a 
new Chief of Mission not me, for I am, as you know, in the personal 
staff of the C. in C, as liaison officer (although perhaps the Censor 
will cut it out) .... 

The fact is that everything I do, I have a feeling may some day 
make something easier for the boys. I don't know how exactly, 
but as Root used to say, it may help to have a background and every 
little helps and some day someone may give them a "leg up" if they 
have a kindly remembrance of their old dad. 

It helps me a lot to think that. I don't want anything done for me 
for my own sake, but if I could think that they would find a kindly 
word, or a little sympathy and understanding because I was their 
father, it would flatter me and please me to death. . . . Just as 
long as we can help. . . . (Here I was pulled away again and 
finally got to my dinner 7?^^ minutes late! They dine at 7:45 — not 
7:46 — and always right on the dot. I was mortified for they had sat 
down and were already through the soup! Wasn't it awful — but 
the C. in C. is the nicest, and was quite sweet and considerate.^ 

There was also the Bishop of Kensington, who had just visited 
the Grand Fleet and two others, besides the A. D. C.'s. For these 
two the C. G. S. and the M. G. O. A. I have great admiration and 
almost affectionate regard, so you see the contact with charming 
people helps a lot and smooths the way, which would otherwise be 
hard and long. 



'In his History of the Great War, Mr. Buchan says of Sir Douglas Haig: 

"The campaign — nay, the history of war — has produced no finer figure; great in 
patience, courtesy, unselfishness, serenity, and iron courage amid reverses and de- 
lays." (yol. iv, p. 438.] 



392 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

In the letter of August 9th, written from advance head- 
quarters, he tells of American victories and chronicles a personal 
triumph : 

These are thrilling days . . . and there are very few moments 
when I can sit down to say a word to you. I am living in a quiet 
spot in the country with the C. in C. and his immediate and operating 
staff. Yesterday, if you will look up your papers of to-day, was a 
wonderful day,^ a great sequel to the accomplishment of the last 
few weeks. The attack was planned and carried out with the greatest 
secrecy and success, and the results so far have been far reaching. 
Three days ago I made another futile effort to find Ett. He was 
about due in a certain region so I started early from Paris and took 
with me Harry Stimson. . . . We found that Ett had not ar- 
rived but would be there in a few days, which would be about to-day 
I think. We had a great day, however, and after a good deal of 
difficulty managed to find good old Colonel McCoy and his regiment. 
They had fought like tigers and heroes for days and nights and had 
won everlasting glory for themselves and for the American Armies 
and Nation. All honor to them and to their brave fellows who had 
fallen. Alas! too many. I saw that splendid soldier Major Donovan 
whose adjutant, Elise West's boy, a lad of the greatest promise 
and usefulness of whom everyone spoke in highest terms, fell in the 
edge of a wood [Belleau Wood] which I visited, a great loss to his 
CO. with whom he was at the time. It was quite near Fere en Tarde- 
nois where I took you in 191 5 to see my old friend Docteur Danton, 
whose house like every other house in the town is destroyed com- 
pletely as well as the Church where I "collected" my first wounded 
officers in September, 1914. McCoy's part in the fighting had raged 
in that vicinity, Seringes, Sergy, Cierges, and you can imagine my 
interest in seeing it all with him.^ 

Harry Stimson and I certainly had a great day, although I was ter- 



*0n August 8th the Battle of Amiens began. The IV British Army and the I 
French Army, under command of Sir Douglas Haig, penetrated the German lines, 
capturing more than 16,000 prisoners and 400 guns. The battle ended on the 12th, 
freeing the Paris-Amiens Railway, and seriously weakening the German position. 
In this battle the British captured 21,850 prisoners and 400 guns. 

*" Even more fortunate were the 32nd and 42nd . . . At the crossing of the Ourcq, 
about the villages of Seringes, Sergy, and Cierges, they crossed bayonets with Prussian 
and Bavarian Guard troops, militia against 6lite, literally crossed bayonets. One 
village was taken and retaken nine times. But the National Guard broke the Prussian 
Guard and pushed on. This region is dotted with American graveyards, testifying to 
the bitterness of the battle." — Frank H. Simonds, History of the World War, vol. v 
(1920), p. 194. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 393 

ribly disappointed not to see Ett,but Iwill try again before many days. 
I have spent two nights here with these splendid people and may be 
here many more days. You at home must be tremendously relieved 
by the news of these last weeks, and proud of the part that your army 
has played. The problem is still colossal, but a rift in the clouds has 
appeared and the task is more equal — not quite so one-sided and im- 
possible. The faith that you and I have kept that "right" and the 
truth 7nust prevail in the end still flourishes green, and hope sees 
clearer and clearer the silver lining. 

Midnight. 

The end of two glorious days. To-day has finished splendidly 
and the dirty swine have been pushed back 10 miles on a front of 20 
miles, a great performance. The British, Australians, and Canadians 
have simply walked over them, the guns are up and the cavalry after 
two such days as they have not known since the beginning of the war 
have done their share and are out to rest and recuperate. God bless 
them. How I would have liked to be a cavalryman! 

We don't know, of course, what the filthy brute is going to do, and 
we must be cautious, more than cautious, or he will swing back with 
a counter attack, or a big offensive somewhere else, but damn him, 
he has been on the run twice now in less than a month, and the good 
ships are hurrying, hurrying with their cargoes of young Americans 
to the rescue! Faster, faster! 

Another change has come my way. General Harts has been re- 
lieved and goes on to a higher command and I am again to be Chef 
de Mission. 

I am greatly pleased and proud of this mark of General Pershing's 
approval. The work and responsibility will be much harder and 
more exacting than of late since I have been practically on Sir Douglas 
Haig's staff. Bless his heart. He is the sweetest, finest thing and 
nothing rattles him. 

This is the loth, before breakfast, and the news is so good that I 
am fairly bursting. 900 boches and a corps staff and a divisional 
commander, and above all the III Corps has gone on and won all its 
objectives, and Americans helped. 

On August 1 2th, still from "Advance General Headquarters," 
Colonel Bacon found or made time to write again: 

I found three of your dear letters to-day at G. H. Q., my other 
G. H. Q., for now you know I am still at "advance" G. H. Q. for this 



394 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

is the 5th day of the battle.^ The letters were of the 5th and 12th 
of July, so you see it takes just about a month as a rule and mine 
to you seem to take even longer. ... I was thrilled to hear of 
your "decoration." I should think you do deserve it. . . , 
These last five days are full of hope. I was out behind the battlefield 
yesterday, and saw the splendid cavalry, who at last had come into 
their own. I wanted to kiss all the horses, and their coats shone 
and they were ready for anything. The English are certainly the 
best horse masters in the world. And the tanks and the armored cars 
and the dead boches, which last make you weep a little in spite of the 
righteous retribution. And to-day the King came to our 33d Di- 
vision H. Q. and there met Pershing and Bliss and pinned medals of 
honor on the swelling chests of about nineteen men, and gave their 
orders to Pershing and Bliss, and there were generals and others, and 
soldiers in a hollow square, and the band played the two national 
airs, and the setting of evergreens on the pelouse and the sunshine 
made a picture to be remembered, and then I brought General 
Pershing back here, a long run, to see the C. in C, and then I ran up 
to G. H. Q., another long run, for my young man, who but Gavin 
Hadden, is down with appendicitis. And then back here, about 50 
miles in 65 minutes, just in time for dinner. A pretty big day, and 
now it's midnight. 

I hear to-day that Ett's division is up. Do you remember the 
biggish town [Fismes] where you and I went with Hanotaux in 191 5, 
on the river a few miles this side of his place? Well, the division is 
somewhere in that sector, and I am crazy to go up there and see the 
boy. If I can only get away some day before long! I have had no 
letter from him for a long time. 

It seems extraordinary to you, and hard to understand why I 
can't go to him, but this army discipline and duty is inexorable, and 
hearts are hard as flint, or pretend to be. 

I hear of 50 more divisions coming before next May making 80 in 
all. . . . Two officers, General Kernan and two other officers spent 
the night but I wasn't there. I was in this little stateroom on board 
this train, where I have spent five great days. I try so hard to be a 
real ''liaison" You can imagine how sensitive and anxious I am, 
how responsive to all the intangible currents and the personal sym- 
pathetic equation. I feel very deeply, and care too much perhaps, 
but I am seldom conscious of my judgment being at fault, although 
often helpless to prevent, or to apply the remedy effectually. . . . 
I wish most of all that I could send you and Hope some account of 
Ett's life and atmosphere. I fully expect he will get promotion be- 

^The last day of the Battle of Amiens. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 395 

fore long. Of course I would like to get him into some staff job, which 
would be of great importance and usefulness and fnusi be done by the 
best we have, but I quite realize that he wouldn't like it if I did, and 
I go on watching my opportunity and trying not to let his name be 
forgotten, confidently hoping that some day soon he will be wanted 
for a bigger job. He has many friends in the Army, and they are 
on the lookout for him. Rhea and Shannon and McCleave and 
McCoy besides his own officers. 

I am not much of a hand at blowing off my own boys, not enough 
perhaps, but I seldom lose a chance to tell of them, and I am very 
proud of them and everyone knows it. 

August 1 6th and the letter tells its own story: 

Just a word with you to-night ... by the light of my bed- 
room lamp, for I am not going in to the office for the first time I think 
in seven months, and I'm all alone in the house, for all sorts of things 
have happened. Did I tell you that General Harts had gone and 
now I am to be Chef de Mission again! I think I did, but never 
mind. . . . Well, I've got to build up a new machine, although 
Cassidy and the Corporal are still with me. This is the first night 
I have been here in 10 days (knock at the door "a Captain on the 
telephone to report for duty", I go downstairs and am now waiting 
for Capt. Pettigrew, 31 ith Infantry, who has come to relieve Hadden. 
I will tell you later how I like him. The boys are making a bed for 
him). 

I have had a pretty rough time the last 48 hours and my beautiful 
Rolls Royce is all smashed, and so is my nose, and my eyes are about 
the colour of a purple plum, and my face all swollen and a few stitches 
in my nose. Don't be alarmed, it will be as beautiful as ever! but my 
head aches and I can't breathe through my nose and I have a nice 
little scratch on the top of my head. 

It was this way. I left advance G. H. Q. day before yesterday, 
and was called at 4:30 at the Crillon, and started for Chaumont, but 
at Vandoeuvre where Napoleon slept the night before a battle, my 
silly old Sergeant Daniels put me in a ditch, and smashed my beautiful 
car, the apple of my eye. In response to a telephone to the next town, 
who should come to my rescue but Gordon Johnston^, and I was 
glad to see him for he took me on, and I was in time, and came back 
by train last evening to Paris with my disgusting head, arrived at 
about I or 2, and left this morning again at 5, having had my wounds 



^Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon Johnston, who had been one of Colonel Bacon's in- 
structors at Plattsburg. 



396 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

dressed by Murphy of St. Louis, who was on the train and insisted on 
taking care of me. It was quiet at advanced G. H. Q., so I came on 
here to Brunehautpre and that is why I'm taking a holiday since 
six o'clock, and am going to bed in about five minutes for I'm short 
of sleep. Haven't these last 8 days been wonderful! Remember 
them well. 

The next day, the 17th, the spirit was willing, only too 
willing, but the flesh was weak: 

Just a wee line before Clark brings my supper. I am still in my 
room, lazy old hound, licking my wounds, and looking at myself in a 
hand glass, for I'm fascinated by my ugly mug. It's better though 
and I'm "slept up", having slept pretty much all day, and I'm off to- 
morrow after the doctor has touched me up, so that I'll not be quite 
so repulsive when I see my Chief that he will send me away again. 

For these are wonderful days and I must not lose a moment. The 
British Victory, for that's what it is, of these last days has had a 
marvellous effect, and no one is more delighted than I, not only for 
its effect upon the war and the boche, but for the sake of Sir Douglas, 
who is perfectly splendid, and deserves all the credit and everything 
that's coming to him, bless his heart. The papers, of course, are 
ringing with it, and have brought you cheer, coming after the great 

and decisive stand on the Marne where the [Censored] and 

then the [Censored] U. S. divisions saved the situation, and 

perhaps the world, then the i8th and 19th of July, and the following 
week, when the beast was pushed back to the Vesle, and the other 
American divisions covered themselves with glory, and the British 
divisions, who had fought and fought again in nearly every show 
since the 2ist of March, hurried around and threw themselves in, too, 
and added another page to the undying credit of Scotland and Eng- 
land, and the French, who had thrown back the Hun again, and their 
filthy Crown Prince east of Rheims, came on again and all under 
Foch's command capped the climax, and now Sir Douglas has hit him 
again, and hurled him back from Amiens and the sea. Isn't it 
glorious! and now we must be wary, always wary and humble for 
pride goeth before destruction and the haughty spirit before a fall. 

The next few days were busy and feverish, with never a 
moment for any one at the front to put pen to paper, unless for 
an urgent military purpose. Therefore there is a break in 
Colonel Bacon's correspondence until August 30th: 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 397 

I am just going to snatch a moment in a busy morning to send you 
a line, for everything has conspired to prevent it for many days and 
every day I have had you in my mind and heart, and every day 
. . . I talk to you, construct sentences for long letters, which I 
never seem to have time to write and wit to remember. Even now I 
am being pulled in many directions, and the telephone is ringing. 

What is most on my mind is Elliot, of course, and I am nearly 
desperate in my longing and determination to break away without 
any excuse if necessary, and go to him. It is difficult for you to 
realize how impossible it is in these times for an officer to leave his 
post, no matter how unimportant it may be. 

These last two weeks, since my accident on the 15th, have been 
worst of all, as none of the things in which I am (professionally) most 
interested have been going well and I have been much preoccupied. 
I cannot, of course, tell you what I mean. The continued British 
advance has been magnificent, and the situation just as intense and 
exciting as it can possibly be. . . . 

I am going to Paris Sunday and Monday with a friend^ on an 
interesting and important mission. If I can possibly work it I shall 
go off through the night to try again to find Ett, which I might do in 
five or six hours and return. As far as I know he is somewhere near 
the river where you and I went in 191 5 and every day brings some 
fragmentary news of raids and small "shows" there, which are not 
terrifying, and supposed not to be important, but which are nasty 
just the same. It is just possible I may sneak away to-day, but I 
never know, and live from minute to minute. 

A nice letter from Virginia tells me that G's Majority, of which 
you spoke, has been given him. Bless his dear heart. He ought to 
be a Major-General, you and I know that, don't we! 

Poor lad, I suppose he is eating his heart out, not to get into the 
active game, but he is a philosopher, and I giggled over his reply 
that, "No, he was stopping in the States. It agreed with him." He 
and Bob would have so liked to come with that fine division from the 
southern mountains. Now they may be assigned anywhere, but such 
is the Army and War. 

Midnight. 

This is the only piece of paper I can get my hands on to-night, and 
I want to send you a word before I go to bed. I am off in the morn- 
ing at 4:30, and I already feel a little guilty at leaving my post for a 
day. I am going to make a try to find Ett. The temptation is too 
strong, and the die is cast. I am due in Paris on Sunday before 



^Sir Douglas Haig. 



398 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

noon, and have many hundred kilometres to go, and not a good car, so 
I am taking chances, but I don't care, I am going, partly for your sake 
. . . as well as my own, and for little Hope too. You will under- 
stand. 

I feel a little as I did when I started for the boat race from Washing- 
ton and didn't get there! 

Here is the story of the great adventure as he tells it in a 
letter of September 2nd, written at night from the Hotel de 
Crillon in Paris: 

Well ... I have had such a nice visit with Ett at last. I 
started at crack of dawn yesterday, no, day before yesterday, and 
arrived again at the place where I used to live in 1914 [Fere-en- 
Tardenois], and where I took you and introduced you to the old doc- 
tor, in whose house I lived. Poor old town! Nothing left but piers 
of bricks and mortar, not a house untouched by war's devastation, 
and the old church where I found my first wounded British officers. 
Not very far on I found news of Ett's whereabouts, and pretty soon 
found his regimental commander, who telephoned out to him to 
come in to see me in the old deserted dilapidated farm house which 
served as regimental H. Q. Before you get this Ett will be a Major, 
for he has been recommended by his C. O., and I was proud to take 
off my gold leaves and give them to him. He certainly deserves his 
promotion, having stuck to his battery through thick and thin and 
taken the best of care of them. His position was reported the 
other day as the best and most carefully prepared camouflage that 
had been seen in the army. 

I rode out with him through the woods to his dugout, meaning to go 
back before night set in, but I stayed so long that I decided to send 
the horses in and spend the night, so I had a fine supper of eggs! and 
toast and coffee, and crawled into Ett's bunk, where I found under the 
blankets a beautiful pink silk and wool blanket, which Mother had 
provided, bless her dear heart, and a fine sleep, in spite of the crashing 
of the batteries, and the other disturbances of the night, enemy 
aeroplanes, orders by telephone, etc. I took with me all of my reserve 
of chocolate, which was much appreciated, some of your soap, the 
razor you sent me, shaving soap and electric lamp, my tin of ginger- 
snaps, and Lieutenant Cleve Dodge and Graham each had some 
chocolate and a gingersnap and it was worth while. Ett was fine, 
keen as a razor, sobered somewhat and serious, and glad to see me, 
and we talked of you and Hope, and the babies and things at home, 
which seems so very, very far away, and I was mighty glad I found 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 399 

him. You may well be proud of your boys, Mother dearest, / am. 
After an early start and a journey through familiar country and 
stricken towns and villages, I got here just in time to lunch with 
Dwight Morrow and Jimmy Logan. I shall see Dwight again. He is 
doing good work and very helpful. I have been busy all yesterday 
and to-day with a British General with whom and others I attended 
conferences and a dinner last night, and then went to the Casino de 
Paris to see a typical, foolish show, where the American flag and 
American soldiers were much in evidence both on and off the stage. 
Les Americains are all the rage just now, and there is a feeling of 
confidence and even joy in this fickle and mercurial place, which 
almost frightens me. I am off to my armies to-morrow, God bless 
them, and give them strength these next few weeks. 

On September nth Colonel Bacon writes from the "American 
Military Mission": 

Don't tell me 5 years more. Not more than one I hope, for did not 
March say he could win if you'd give him four million of men, and 
surely the Congress responded nobly. Now the question is how to 
get them over here! Is there tonnage enough in all the world? 

I sent you a cable that I had seen Ett, but I couldn't say anything. 
I said that all the news was good thinking you would understand that 
all was well with him. I told you a little about my night with him in 
his dugout, I in his cot and he beside me . . . and a telephone in 
his hand all night. I just managed to catch him two days before they 
went forward across the river. . . . 

The American Ambulance report is before me. Peed seems to have 
tried to give you some credit and recognition, tardy and inadequate 
as it is. You are making an absolutely unique record and are keeping 
alive the personal sympathetic side in a way that makes everything 
else of the kind look like "thirty cents." Of course they must ac- 
knowledge receipt of your wonderful monthly contributions. The 
report puts it pretty well, and I think makes the record straight. 

If you can only keep it up without breaking yourself down. . . . 

I shall be glad to hear your account of Theodore when you see him, 
and tell me what Root seems to be doing. He ought to be sent to 
London to succeed Page.^ There is nothing so important for the 

^Walter Hines Page (1855-1918), American Ambassador to Great Britain (1913- 
1918), resigned in 1918, worn out by his services to both countries. He died shortly 
after his return to the United States. 

Of him the Encyclopedia Britannica says, "No man ever served his country, or the 
cause of Anglo-American friendship, more strenuously." [12th edition, vol. xxxii, 
p. 3.] See, Burton J. Hendrick's Life and Letters of Walter Hines Page (2 vols., 1922). 



400 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

world now as the better understanding and rapprochement of the 
English-speaking people, and we in our country need it most of all. 
The finishing of the war and the problems after must be done by us 
acting together. It cannot be done if we are apart. 

A week later, on September i8th, Colonel Bacon paid his 
respects to the Germans in terms which would not be relished 
by the ninety-three scholars beyond the Rhine, those who in the 
early days of the war in an appeal to American scholars justi- 
fied the conduct of their country, which they did not compre- 
hend and which some of them at least now know to have been 
far from blameless: 

Now, the noble British Army goes on untiringly, heroes dying, doing 
beyond human endurance. Now, the versatile, briUiant French 
Army take up the running, and America is beginning to help again, 
after the first marvellous effort of July, which did so much to turn the 
tide. Back, back goes the unspeakable Hun, fighting, snarling, lay- 
ing waste as he goes, killing all he can, and now for about the first time 
crying, like the beaten bully, the dirty swine, that he is, through the 
mouth of his Crown Prince, that he never meant any harm, that he 
only wants to save his filthy pig-sty from destruction and extermina- 
tion, and that his Crown Prince, the next in succession, is not a bad 
fellow after all, not a bloodthirsty, ruthless wanton, as the world 
thinks, saying the same things almost that Kiihlmann said, for which 
he lost his official head.^ On les aura, on les aura, I say, and the pity 
of it is that we must all go on paying the awful price through the 
months ahead, sacrifices for which there never can be restitution, 
suflFering, dying, to rid the world of this curse. God grant that the 
victory may be so complete and conclusive as to prevent its recurrence 
for all time. 

You are watching the papers and the maps with feverish expecta- 
tions these days, I am sure, as the boche goes back, and you are al- 
most afraid every day to get your paper, with a sickening fear that he 
may have recovered and turned and dealt some foul blow, and that 
these days of continuing successes are all a dream. I know the feel- 
ing, the nightmare is over. He can never do what he hoped and ex- 
pected to do in March and April and May and June. 

Suffering there will be and failure and disappointment, and delay 

iRichard von Kiihlmann (1873- ). In a speech in the Reichstag, July, 1918, he 
declared that the war could not be ended by arms alone, and implied that it would 
require diplomacy to secure peace. This statement was displeasing to Germany and to 
the High Command, and he was obliged to tender his resignation in consequence. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 401 

perhaps, but the world is saved, saved in the nick of time, from the 
domination of the swine idea, the swine " Kultur," the swine oppres- 
sion and brutahty, and the law of force alone will not govern the fam- 
ily of nations. . . . 

The time must be getting near for Gap to come over. I wonder 
what his assignment will be. Bob's course at Sill will keep him till 
late in November, and even then they may keep him in the "States" 
to help the growing new army. What a change! to have passed the 
conscription of 1 8 to 45 unanimously. If we can only find the tonnage 
and means of getting them over here. . . . 

I am pretty well, I thank you, although my bulbous nose will never 
again be delicate and aquiline. It is over three weeks now since I fell by 
the wayside and I am still uncomfortable, and unpleasant to look upon. 

Better off than Hermann Harjes though, with two broken 
legs. ... 

Did I tell you that I have a fine new husband for Racksha who is my 
constant companion and whose name is Kirkpatrick, Kirk for short? 
I will try to send him home to you.^ 

Elliot he saw again under circumstances stated in a letter of 
September 19th: 

In the midst of another busy hour something tells me I must 
snatch a second to say a word to you. ... I sent you a cable 
from Paris that I had seen Ett and that he was going strong. I didn't 
know what to say in a cable, I started from here on Monday at 5 -.30 
in the morning and went steadily till seven in the evening when I 
found the boy in a wood where his C. Battery was hidden, seated on a 
box with a large pile of money before him on a board and a long 
string of his men lined up waiting to be paid. I was lucky because he 
had orders to pull out at 8. We had supper with him. Major Jefferson 
of the British Army and I, and hurried away for we had to get out of 
that area before dark, no lights being allowed, and arrived in Paris 
at midnight, a fairly long day. 

Ett was looking very well, and had been through quite an expe- 
rience with his battery. He hadn't had much sleep and his horses 
were pretty tired. The enclosed clipping refers, I am pretty sure, to 
C. Battery which had the most advanced position. I think he will get 

'There was a young officer of the British air service stationed with Colonel Bacon, 
Kirkpatrick by name. He owned a valuable German police dog to whom he was 
devoted. When about to start on a dangerous mission he consigned the dog to Colonel 
Bacon's care, on the understanding that the dog was to be his if he returned in safety, 
and otherwise to be Colonel Bacon's by right of purchase. He never returned, and the 
dog is now at the Bacon home, Westbury, Long Island. 



402 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

his Majority soon, for which he has been recommended as I told you, 
when he will have command of three batteries, or will be made 
brigade adjutant. His B. General McClosky asked me if I thought 
he would rather stay with troops as an outdoor man, or do the paper 
work, etc. of an Adjutant. But the Brigade Adjutant has much 
important work other than paper work, being practically the Chief of 
Staff of the brigade. I hope myself he will take it. 

Everything is going well, and I wish I could tell you how high my 
hopes run. 

The Captain did not accept the post of Adjutant and the 
authorities were apparently too busy to give attention to the 
Majority when the Armistice came and held up promotions. 
He received it, however, in the Reserve. 

American Military Mission, G. H. Q. 

Oct. 2d, 'i8. 

I am just in from "Advance" for an hour or so, and must send you a 
little line although I haven't the time for a real letter. I am so brim- 
full of the events of the last lo days, especially the last 3 days of 
glorious contact with our 27th and 30th divisions, whose gallantry in 
the words of a distinguished British officer on the spot "must stand 
out through all time in American History."^ Well, I cannot speak of 



1 Australian Corps. 

Corps Headquarters, 
and October, 191 8. 
My dear General: 

As the Second American Corps has now been withdrawn from the line, and my 
official association with you and your troops has been, for the time being, suspended, 
I desire to express to you the great pleasure that it has been to me and to the troops 
of the Australian Army Corps to have been so closely allied to you in the recent very 
important battle operations which have resulted in the breaking through of the main 
Hindenburg Line on the front of the Fourth British Army. 

Now that fuller details of the work done by the 27th and 30th American Divisions 
have become available, the splendid gallantry and devotion of the troops in these 
operations have won the admiration of their Australian comrades. The tasks set 
were formidable, but the American troops overcame all obstacles and contributed in 
a very high degree to the ultimate capture of the whole tunnel system. . . . 

John Monash. 
Major General G. W. Read, N. A., 

Commanding Second American Corps. 
Under date of October 20th, Sir Douglas Haig sent the following telegram to General 
Read, 

"I wish to express to you personally and to all the officers and men serving under 
you my warm appreciation of the very valuable and gallant service rendered by you 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 403 

it without great sobs in my heart and in my voice, for many are the 
homes that are already desolate. America is paying the great price 
of which I have thought and talked so much these last awful four 
years. 

God bless you . . . and keep you strong and well in your 
splendid fortitude. I must leave you now in the midst of this 
scrappy scrawl. I have already been interrupted many times. I 
am off again to "Advance" where I am living with my wonderful 
C. in C. and his splendid Staff. 

I will always cable you when I can manage to get a glimpse of Ett 
or hear news of him. The Argonne has all my thoughts. . . .^ 

I am a Lieutenant-Colonel now. 

Oct. 5th, '18. 

I am puzzled to-night and troubled in my mind about certain 
things, so I am just going to grab a pen for a few minutes while I am 
waiting, and speak to you. 

I have your two dear letters of Sept. 4th and loth but the loth came 
many days before the 4th. I am with you heart and soul in every- 
thing you do and feel ... I know how you are watching and 
waiting and praying every day. The strain is almost too great, 
isn't it? The last weeks and days are almost finer than any others if 
such a thing were possible, and I am living through them almost in a 
dream. 

I hardly dare breathe what I hope. I can get no news of Ett's 
division. I am cut off about as completely as you are, and each day 
plunge into the absorbing events of the moment. 

I have been with two of our divisions lately, and I am proud as 
Lucifer. We are all in the mighty stream now, being hurried along, 
whither! The wily boche is whining and snivelling and now, for- 



throughout the recent operations with the Fourth British Army. Called upon to 
attack positions of great strength held by a determined enemy all ranks of the 27th 
and 30th American Divisions under your command displayed an energy, courage, 
and determination in attack which proved irresistible. It does not need me to tell 
you that in the heavy fighting of the past three weeks you have earned the lasting 
esteem and admiration of your British comrades in arms whose successes you have so 
nobly shared." 

^The Argonne figures very frequently in Mr. Bacon's letters. The American Army, 
in conjunction with the French, was actively engaged in those operations, and with 
uniform success; indeed, it is not too much to say that the American Expeditionary 
Forces covered themselves with glory. For the three phases of the Meuse-Argonne 
battle, September 26-October 3, October 4-31, November i-ii, see the Final Report 
of General John J. Pershing to the Secretary oj War, September i, igig, pp. 43-53" 



404 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

sooth, comes out with a "camouflaged" democratic bluff, with Bern- 
storfF as his Foreign Minister and a peace programme, but his whole 
structure is tottering, and brick after brick is falling. 
My moment is past and I must run. 

The Germans had actually sued for peace, and the game of 
bluster and bluff of that great bully was over for the moment. 
The military caste had shot its bolt and failed; the reign of 
the Kaiser was ending and the sunshine of peace was breaking 
through the shifting clouds of war. The race between Ger- 
many and the United States had been run, the Prussians had 
failed to get to Paris before the Americans could cross the ocean, 
and the troops of the New World, called in to redress the 
balance of the Old, blocked the passage to Paris at Chateau 
Thierry. 

The German Emperor was on his last legs, far from the days 
in which he had said, "Looking upon myself as the instrument 
of the Lord, without regard for daily opinions and intentions, 
I go my way. . . You Germans have only one will and 
that is my will; there is only one law, and that is my law, sic 
volo^ sic jubeOy only one master in this country. That is I, and 
who opposes me I shall crush to pieces." He was down and 
almost out and in the end he deserted the army to save his 
hide when he had already lost his crown; he had little reason 
and less judgment to lose. 

Colonel Bacon followed the interchange of notes and the 
negotiations for peace as closely as possible for one at the front. ^ 



HDn October 6, 191 8, Prince Max of Baden, then the Imperial German Chancellor, 
requested President Wilson to use his good offices with the Allied Powers for an armis- 
tice, in order to procure a peace based upon " the programme laid down by the Presi- 
dent of the United States in his message to Congress of January 8, 191 8, and in his 
subsequent pronouncements, particularly in his address of September 27, 191 8." 

On the 8th, Secretary of State Lansing asked on behalf of the President, if Germany 
accepted the President's pronouncements so that the Powers would only need to agree 
upon "the practical details of their application." 

On the 1 2th, Doctor Solf, Secretary of the German Foreign Office, replied in the 
affirmative. 

On the 14th, Secretary Lansing, acknowledging the German note of the 12th, stated 
that the President would have to be assured that the new German Government rep- 
resented the German people, before transmitting the request to the Allied Powers. 

On October 20th, Doctor Solf gave that assurance. 

On the 23rd, Secretary Lansing informed the German Secretary that the President 
accepted his assurance and that the President would " take up with the Governments 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 405 

He had done all he could to arouse and prepare the nation and 
to bring the administration to a realization of the situation 
and to the performance of its duties as he saw them. With the 
entry of the United States into the war he occupied his thoughts 
less with diplomacy and politics and more and more with the 
armies whose victories had opened the road to peace. 

He knew what had taken pjace yesterday and he likewise 
knew what was to happen on the morrow. Of neither could he 
speak freely in his letter of October 9th: 

To-morrow will be my wedding day . . . and as I cabled you 
yesterday, it has been and always will be the brightest, happiest day of" 
my life. It has brought me all the happiness and has put into me all 
the good that this poor old soul has been conscious of for 40 years. 
Such as I am you have saved. . . . Everything in this world that 
I have I owe to you. 

To-morrow I shall probably spend all alone on a journey of many 
miles to find my other Chief, and back again, and I shall do my best 
to get some definite news of Ett. They have all been having a pretty 
serious time, and I shall be glad to get in touch with them, and find 
out more about the details. The wonderful events of the last few 
days are almost too much to comprehend,'^ and to-day (if you will re- 
member the date) is perhaps the most portentous of all, (I am writing 
now at the Crillon late at night having been snatched away before I 
could finish the first page of this scrap of a letter, leaving advance 
G. H. Q. at 4 o'clock, and having dined here late alone. I am oflF in 
the early morn for a hard day's run.) I hardly dare think of what 
the next few days and weeks may bring forth. . . . 



with which the Government of the United States is associated the question of an armis- 
tice." 

On the 27th, Doctor Solf acknowledged Secretary Lansing's communication of the 
23rd, concluding with the statement that "the German Government now awaits the 
proposals for an armistice, which is the first step toward a peace of justice, as described 
by the President in his pronouncements." 

On November 5, Secretary Lansing transmitted to Germany the acceptance by the 
Allied Powers of the German request for an armistice, and on November 11, 1918, the 
armistice, ending for the present the dream — or rather nightmare — of world domina- 
tion, was signed. 

'October 8th, the British III and IV Armies, with the Thirtieth American Division 
began the Second Battle of Le Cateau, and pushed the Germans to the south of Cam- 
brai. On the 9th, the British captured Cambrai and on the loth they carried the 
whole of Cambrai, ending the Second Battle of Le Cateau. 



4o6 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

I wish I could tell you about yesterday. I was with our corps at- 
tached to the British, and you must have read about it in to-day's 
paper. I got up at 2:30, and went out in the darkness to where I 
could see the barrage at the zero hour, and the advancing reserves, 
and the wonderful cavalry. How I longed for a horse ! I wanted to 
kiss them all as they went by, and every time I saluted a squadron 
commander, and got his cheery "good morning" as the sun was rising, 
and he passed on out into the Hell beyond, I was shaken by a big sob 
of emotion, and the fine fellows of the 30th Div. moved quietly up in 
support in the gray dawn. 

To-morrow will be the loth of October! And I shall think of you 
all day in my lonely ride of 8 or 10 hours. It is my one joy and 
privilege. 

October 10. 

Where do you suppose I am . . . stealing a minute to send 
you a line of love on "our day." Aeroplanes are buzzing overhead 
and it has been a beautiful American October day ever since I left the 
Hotel Crillon at an early hour. I am in Peter Bowditch's office wait- 
ing for him to return from a day out with the divisions, and I hope he 
will bring me news of Ett, whom I may be able to find myself to- 
morrow, for the Chief has asked me to stay over a day or two, which, 
of course, I am delighted to do, to see Ett, I hope, first of all, and Bow- 
ditch and Quekemeyer and many others, and get the atmosphere of 
the American Army in the field. If I can only find McCoy too, and 
Nolan and Rhea, it will be a great visit. I am so proud of the Chief 
in this hour for which he has worked and waited and hoped so long, 
and I can take back to British "Advance" a great picture of what 
seems to me a great triumph. . . . The British high command 
has — but I suppose I must not say what I was going to. 

If Colonel Bacon was proud of his Chief, General Pershing 
was full of admiration and affection for his Chief of Mission, 
saying on one occasion after the war, that Colonel Bacon was 
the noblest man he had ever known. 

After saying that Elliot's "division [then in the Argonne] 
has been doing splendidly" Colonel Bacon closes with a wish 
and a hope to Mrs. Bacon on this, the last anniversary of his 
married life. "May we never be parted any tenth of October, 
or in fact any other day, if I can only get home." 

That Mrs. Bacon did not let the loth pass without a word, 
appears from a note of the i6th dashed off somewhere near the 
front: 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 407 

Your sweet message was read to me over the phone last evening , . . 
and I loved it. You see I am far away from " Montreuil " three hours 
by automobile, and I came straight here from Paris on my way back 
from the Argonne leaving Paris at five in the morning. I am off 
again this p. m. on the same journey. . . . The road by Meaux, 
Montmirail, Chalons, St. Menehould is a good one and full of reminis- 
cence and history. The hotel of "the high Mother of God" offers 
a good meal en route if the time of day suits, but I never bother much 
about meals and stop only to allow the chauffeur to grab a mouthful. 

1 eat and sleep only if it is convenient. . . . 

The real big thing that is in all our minds — the war — the possibility 
of an end! 

The Armies must not allow themselves to be diverted for an instant, 
or the dastardly boche, while he whines for peace, will spring at our 
throats when he gets us off our guard. There is no kind of low-down 
treachery of which he is not capable and cunning as the devil himself. 
Yesterday I walked with the C. in C. all over the tunnel of the canal 
on the Hindenburg line, the keystone of that remarkable defensive 
position, and you cannot imagine such impregnable strength — noth- 
ing like it in the world, and the lads from New York and North and 
South Carolina and Tennessee took it, backed up by the Australians, 
as you have read by this time. We marvelled as we went over the 
whole length, and my heart ached as I came across little piles of the 
well-known U. S. equipment, where little groups of splendid fellows 
had fought it out and died. 

The second note of President Wilson in reply to the German 
overtures for peace had been made public, upon which Colonel 
Bacon comments in the closing lines of a letter from Paris, of the 

25th: 

And who do you suppose I am waiting for this dark afternoon. . . ! 
Why for Ett to be sure, although I am not at all sure of finding him. 
Yesterday morning up in the north a telegram came from him saying 
that he might get 3 days' leave "about the 25th" and where should he 
meet me? Well, I at once started for Paris, having a good excuse for 
coming, and thinking he might drift this way. To-day at lunch with 
Davy, if you please, I saw a boy who had seen Cleve Dodge, who was 
stopping at Fontainebleau because they couldn't take "leave" in 
Paris. ... I thought that perhaps Ett might be there. I have 
telephoned to the hotel there and hear that five officers left there at 

2 o'clock for Paris so here I am waiting, in the hope that he may 
turn up. 



4o8 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

My last ten'^days have been even more mouvementes than usual. 
Twice to the Argonne, then suddenly to London last Saturday — 
back again on Tuesday with my British C. in C, long journeys to 
"advance," and yesterday here by way of St. Quentin, Ham, Com- 
piegne, Senlis. To-day all the world is turning up. . . . 

And to-day has come the last note of the President to the Hun. 
The whole situation \s passionnante, isn't it! 

Will the boche take it lying down? and end the war? We must not 
fool ourselves, and you know my temperament, and my tendency to 
wait and see before believing. 

The news was too good to be true. Two days later, the 
27th, from Paris, he writes: 

Still waiting ... for Ett, but with disappearing pros'pects, for 
I learn that Earl and Cleve Dodge, and others of the 77th, have been 
recalled, so I suppose they are to be ordered in again in the last 
(perhaps) desperate attack. It makes one's heart stand still to think 
of the fierce struggle out in those woods, but Thank God! the end is 
almost in sight, and to-day the resignation of Ludendorf is published. 

House is here and my two Chiefs and the days are certainly 
"passionate." House has said that he would be here perhaps two 
weeks, perhaps two years. Before many days now we shall know 
which.^ 

Colonel Bacon hoped "two weeks" instead of "two years": 

If ever a man longed for a thing, / do for the end of this thing. 
Now is the time for wisdom, and unselfish solemn thoughts. I shud- 
der to think that the world might be convulsed again, and thrown 
back into the agony of despair by the ill-considered, selfish attitude of 
some one man, a national group, and yet my whole desire is that the 
filthy, unspeakable Hun shall be made to pay, in justice, the penalty 
of the suffering he has deliberately brought upon mankind. 

Shall justice be tempered with mercy? Should it be?? 

This is what he thought and said on October 28th: 

Another day of intense interest and importance. . . . and oh so 
much depends upon these days! I have been flying about liaising as 

'Colonel House had just reached Europe. He left New York secretly and at the 
President's request on October 17, 191 8. 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 409 

hard as I can possibly liaise, and feeling, of course, as you might 
know, the whole weight of nations and the world on my own poor old 
tired back. "It don't seem the same old world" either, and the 
days, and the changes go on, as in a dream. If only it all could be 
settled within the next few weeks or days!! And save the lives and 
suffering of thousands upon thousands, who otherwise must go. It 
seems almost too much to think how near it may be with those boys 
out there in their desperate grip with death and despair. But the 
dreadful, inexorable struggle goes on, and the days and hours of 
anguish, which may be all so unnecessary, and may be stopped at any 
minute if men's minds can only get together, and a great hush come 
upon the world. 

One can only dream about it, not comprehend it all yet. "All things 
are ready if our minds be so," as a sweet young girl student once pro- 
pounded and explained. Bless her dear heart! But minds meet 
slowly, and men and boys must die and women must weep, in the 
meantime. Forgive this stupid little cri du coeur^ just as I am going 
off to dinner. 

In his letter of October 30th, written from Paris, Colonel 
Bacon undoubtedly stated the views of the Allied leaders: 

Still here . . . although my British C. in C. has gone back to-day, 
and my real C. in C. may leave to-morrow. The clans have gathered 
as you have seen by the papers, and before you receive this the whole 
situation may be changed, or we may be just entering into a new and 
bloody phase, which might last for months. One thing is certain. 
The boche is surely beaten, and everything that he stands for. The 
dreadful nightmare is passing, and it is only a question of time and 
degree. 

The world breathes more freely, for the crisis is definitely passed, 
although the period of settlement and punishment and recovery may 
bring still more agony and sacrifice. The world is less sad here in 
Paris and becoming more normal, but, for me, I have had no heart for 
it, and like to crawl away by myself and lick my wounds. . . 

The Place de la Concorde is brilliantly lighted now at night, and, 
as you have read, hundreds of boche guns and cannon of all types are 
artistically arranged for the admiring crowds to gaze upon, and boche 
helr»->ets and boche aeroplanes to your heart's content. If only the 
word could be given, and the beastly Hun made to surrender quickly, 
so that we could be through with the dirty business! 

He would be a thousand times better off than if we have to march 
across the Rhine, and on to his humiliation in Berlin, which the Allies 



4IO ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

will as surely do as there is a God of Truth and Justice in Heaven, 
unless he gives up now, now. If he surrenders unconditionally now he 
will be given far more than he deserves, but if he tries to fight on to 
save his dirty face, and his pride, and his throne, and his power of 
evil, we'll rub his disgusting nose in the mire, and with a flaming 
sword of righteous retribution lay waste his land, and make him 
suffer, and pay in kind for the lives and souls that he has so wantonly 
and foully crushed. I loathe the beast, but if he honestly throws up 
his hands now, he will be allowed to live and repent. 

The Allied Armies were busy but not so far advanced as 
rumour w^ould have it. Versailles, where the Supreme War 
Council was sitting to draft the terms for Germany's allies and 
for the Germans as well, held the interest of the public as well 
as the front. Colonel Bacon's letter of November ist gives a 
picture of Paris, of what was going on at Versailles and at the 
front : 

The sunshine in the Place de la Concorde is wonderful, and the 
crowds, thousands and thousands, staring at the boche guns and 
trophies make a picture never to be forgotten. To-day the Turkish 
capitulation has been published, and the Austrian "terms" formu- 
lated. My British Chief has just returned, and I have just lunched 
with him and his A. D. C, and Lord Clive, his B. G. S., and I am 
following them in a few minutes. . . . To say that these days and 
hours and moments are tremendous and vital in their importance, 
would be a mild description. 

Peace, or rather an end to the actual war, is in the air, and one ought 
to be happy, but those boys are still fighting tooth and nail out there 
in the Argonne, and I have no heart for anything. 

I cannot join in any gay company and last night I had my dinner 
on a tray in the room of a sick British officer. I wish to go nowhere. 

The letter of November 2nd adds details to the picture on a 
very large canvas: 

Austria is gone and Hungary, and now for the boche himself.^ And 
our divisions are fighting like tigers out there at this very moment, 



iQne by one Germany's allies in the war were crushed. An armistice was con- 
cluded with Bulgaria, September 29th, with Turkey, October 31st, with Austria- 
Hungary, November 3rd. An armistice with Germany itself was to be signed eight 
days later. 



I 



CHIEF OF MISSION AT BRITISH G. H. Q. 411 

and it is sickening. There was a splendid advance yesterday, and I 
am sure that to-day's news will be good. In the north, too, the 
papers announce that the Franco-Americans made a big gain by the 
Scheldt. Our divisions there have put new life into the attack. 
I heard to-day of the boys' division, Bob's and Caspar's. How they 
are regretting not being with it! I am still here waiting and scouting. 
Pershing and Haig are both here to-day, and all the other gros 
legumes L[loyd] G[eorge], Balfour, Milner, Reading and last, but 
really playing a big part, our only Col. House. He is doing well, 
and made a very good impression upon me, and upon all the others I 
think. The Navy men, too, are in evidence. Admirals and First 
Lords. Versailles was an interesting place yesterday, at tea time 
with them all. Pichon [French Minister of Foreign Affairs], too, who 
asked for you. 

Thursday, November 7, 191 8, was a day of rejoicing. A 
false rumour was current everywhere that the Armistice was 
signed. It spread like wildfire and was cabled to America and 
elsewhere with permission of the authorities. Paris, London, 
New York, and other centres were wild with the news. It was 
not false — it was previous, coming events had cast their shad- 
ows before — six days, to be exact. 

Colonel Bacon was a "doubting Thomas" because he knew. 
In his letter of the 7th he wrote: 

Can it possibly be true!! The bruit qui court to-day is that the 
Armistice was signed to-day, but as I believe I know that it is not true, 
I disbelieve everything and I'll not believe that this awful thing is 
going to end now, abruptly, till it is a. fait accompli. The nightmare 
has been too dreadful, and if I were to awake again and find it true and 
still going on for months I could not bear it. 

The wonderful performance of the ist Army out therein the Argonne 
for the last seven days has been simply too splendid. Each day the 
world has been wondering whether it could go on, whether the long 
and lengthening line of communication could stand the strain, whether^ 
in fact, the staff work was up to it. And the professionals, French and 
British, have had their "doots," and each day has been finer than the 
last and Pershing and the American Army has come into its own, and 
has achieved a proud place in history and in the opinion of all the 
military world that nothing can destroy — and I have had a great week 
as the conferences ended and I went back to Brunehautpre for a night 
and then to "Advance" where I went with the "Chief" to visit the 
armies and the corps, and last night I spent in an old chateau with 



412 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

the II American Corps, and here I am again to-day to be greeted by 
the bruit qui court and the suppressed excitement of all Paris. 

To-morrow I am off" in the early morning to the Argonne for I have 
an interesting message for the C. in C, and I must get news of Ett from 
whom I have not heard since this last attack began a week ago, and I 
know that the division has been in it and that the fighting has been 
desperate. 

It has been the coup de grace, I verily believe, and has proved to the 
boche as well as to every one else that if it be necessary the American 
Army can be developed to wipe the dirty brutes off the map. The 
world now knows what it only half knew before, and whether he lies 
down now, or decides to struggle on, in vain and desperate hope of 
something turning up to give him better terms, we have got him 
"0« les a" not "o« les aura," as the French have repeated again and 
again for four dreadful years. Can the world recover in a reasonable 
time? Can we resume our peaceful lives, better I hope than ever 
before? or will world bolshevism run amuck, and bring renewed 
troubles and suffering of a different kind? I wonder. 

The Germans had received the terms of the proposed armis- 
tice and everybody was breathlessly asking, "Will they sign?" 
The alternative was sign or sink out of sight as the Allied 
Armies meant to dictate peace at Berlin if the armistice were 
not signed. The fighting at the front was fast and furious; the 
Allies to force a decision, as the Germans used to say; the Ger- 
mans to hold until the armistice was signed, lest the full extent 
of the debacle be known in advance of its acceptance. 

The Armistice was signed on the eleventh day of November.^ 

*As illustrating Colonel Bacon's thoughtfulness of others, the following passage from 
a statement of the Director of the Hotel de Crillon in Paris is quoted: 

Le II Novembre igi8, a 5 heures du matin, je Jus reveille par le telephone; on demandait 
a me parler du ^uartier-General Britannique; c'etait Major Robert Bacon qui etait au 
bout du fil. II me semble encore entendre avec quelle joie il m' annongait confidentielle- 
ment de prendre mes dispositions pour pavoiser lajagade de V Hotel en me disant qu' h onze 
heures le canon serait tire pour annoncer la signature de l' Armistice.! Je lui repondis 
amicalement que depuis quelques temps on nous bernait tous les jours avec des nouvelles 
semblables et que je demeurais credule. II me repondit quil avait de suite pense a moi et 
que la nouvelle quil m'annonfait etait tres certaine. Je gardai precieusement le secret et 
fis mes preparatifs ainsi quil me le conseillait, et, grace a Mr. Robert Bacon, le dernier 
coup de canon n etait pas tire que le Crillon etait pavoise et prenait son air de Jete; ce 
Jut de ce fait la premiere maison decoree de toute la Ville de Paris. 



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CHAPTER XIX 

After the Armistice 

Colonel Bacon's next letter was written apparently from 
Paris on November 13th, two days after the signing of the 
armistice between the defeated Germans and the victorious 
Allies, therefore two days after the cessation of hostilities: 

I have no words yet to describe my feelings of the last few 
days , . . 

I am scribbling this in two minutes to send off by Harry Davy, bless 
his heart. He has saved my life these last days and I have clung to 
him, and laughed with him, and cried with him. 

It is all too wonderful, and to-night I am off in a few minutes with 
Gen'l Pershing in his train to see Sir Douglas to-morrow, and decorate 
him. Then we are going on out to Chaumont and I shall go on to see 
Ett — from whom I haven't heard a thing, so I shall be away several 
days. There is no use my trying to write of the new world which is 
being born. It is too tremendous, nor can I describe the allegresse of 
Paris mingled with solemnity and sadness that fairly makes me bawl 
every little while. . . . Paris was simply mad. 

I am sending you my beautiful Kirkpatrick, the only thing I have. 
Keep him with you if you can, and feed him, and be very firm and 
severe with him, and he'll soon mind, but don't beat him. Always 
make him "lie down." 

On November 14th he writes from the "Office of the Com- 
mander-in-Chief" and has less trouble with names and places. 
The incident he describes was interesting and the surroundings 
in keeping: 

Boche prisoners are staring in the windows of General Pershing's 
train as we roll slowly along for hours and hours through the desolate 
waste of battlefields — battlefields of three long years. 

I am having another stirring, wonderful day . . . since I 
scribbled a hectic line to you last night, as I was leaving Paris. We 
left at eleven and waked up in Cambrai, where cars came for us after 

413 



414 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

griddle cakes for breakfast, Sir D. Haig's cars, and we motored 8 

kilometers to which I can say now is a siding where lies the 

Chief's train — "Advanced H. Q." Sir D. and Sir Herbert Lawrence 
met us, and we walked on in a thick mist as the sun was getting 
higher, and breaking through, and then occurred a really wonderful 
"manifestation." Let me say that the party consisted of Gen. 
Pershing, Gen. Dawes, Col. Quekemeyer, Capt. de Marenches, 
another Captain, and myself. Then came the simple presentation 
under the entwined flags of Britain and the U. S. of our military medal 
by Gen. Pershing to Field Marshal Haig, and then the hollow square 
of Highlanders, the 51st, flower of all the British Army, Black Watch, 
Argyles and Sutherlands and Camerons formed in column and 
marched past in review before Gen. Pershing. 

Well . . . you can imagine where my poor old heart was, and 
what was coursing down my cheeks. It was a sort of couronnement 
for mel Now, on the way back to Paris from whence the train starts 
again at eleven to-night for Chaumont, where I shall get a car to take 
me on to Toul or Verdun or wherever I find the 77th to be resting and 
if I can possibly manage it, I shall run oflf with Ett for a few days, and 
clean him up and feed him up and warm him up before I go back to 
Iwuy, British "Advance," where I suppose my job as Chief of Mili- 
tary Mission and Liaison Officer attached to personal staflF of the C. 
in C. is nearly over. I wonder! There is much to be done, of course, 
through the coming weeks and months, but I know not what part I 
shall be ordered to take. Is the war really over! I can hardly believe 
it, or understand . . . 

Bob and Caspar, I suppose, feel terribly out of it, and curse their 
luck not to have been able to come over, but they will always have the 
proud satisfaction of having responded nobly and of having been 
ready and willing to make any sacrifice. 

In a letter of the 15th Colonel Bacon writes: 

I am discouraged too at the prospectof spending another winterover 
here with all the incentive gone, and no hope of taking part in anything 
but small bickerings and selfish troubles, of which there will be plenty, 
and I can't tell you how I long to get home to you and as much of the 
old life as there is left, or to make a new one for a while longer. I am 
not half as brave as you are . . . and when I am not held up by 
stern necessity of continual and constant action, my poor old courage 
oozes out. Of course we are living in a confused dream and nothing 
seems true. It is difficult for me to see how I can be of any use to any 
one over here, and I want to go home, but so does everybody else and 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 415 

my lot will be I suppose to stay till toward the last. I am afraid 
to think how long that may be. First long-drawn-out peace con- 
ferences which may last for months, then gradual demobilization 
which will consume many more months if we don't get to fighting 
again. 

You must have read to-day the account of the surrender of the 
boche fleet. Wasn't it thrilling! My poor old emotional eyes are 
always wet nowadays. All these wonderful things stir me to my very 
depths. Perhaps after 4 years I am even more susceptible than I 
used to be. 

American Military Mission 

Nov. 21, '18. 

Can it be possible that the war is really over, and that I am coming 
back to you after awhile! A long, long while still, I am afraid. The 
relief after all the suspense has brought about a sort of anti-climax 
with me and I wander about wondering. Ett is here with me at 
Montreuil, and we have just walked around the old walls and battle- 
ments that I have never been able to describe to you or even speak 
about. I went to Chaumont with General Pershing, spent one day 
and night there, seeing my very few friends at G.H.Q. and my French 
friends of the town, who were really glad to see me, General Wirbel 
and the Maire Monsieur Levy and Commandant Jacquot and Capi- 
taine Frechet and best of all the Bishop with whom I lunched and had 
a long talk. He is very happy and his work with the Army Chap- 
lains going well. 

The next day I started for the Argonne via Ligny-en-Barrois where 
I lunched and then on through Verdun and over the Meuse, and 
north where I found McCoy in a fascinating old chateau, Louppy, 
ready to start at 5 the next morning for the Rhine! at the head of his 
brigade. I bade good-bye to him and started on farther north and 
west to find Ett, which I did by lunch time at Sommauthe, north of 
Buzancy, and as good luck would have it he was offered seven days' 
leave, and I ran off with him, arriving at Paris at three in the morning, 
en route for here. To-morrow he is going out to Lille and all that 
country and will spend the night with General Laycock, who is com- 
manding a brigade of artillery. 

Ett has been offered a place on the staff of General Wright. You 
remember him in the Philippines ... I almost advise him to take 
it as his promotion has not come as recommended, because of there 
being no vacancy, and there seems to be little prospect of his doing 
anything for the next two or three months except drill and re-equip 
his battery in some back area. It is the hardest kind of luck that his 
division is much broken up to make up other divisions, and is not to go 



4i6 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

to the Rhine, which might be better than sitting still doing nothing. 
Who would have thought of wanting to go to Germany! Rotten 
hole where nothing but boches live! I have before me a new map of 
the Rhinelands, and the three bridgeheads, and McCoy and his men 
will be there in a day or two. It is all too wonderful. 

The last Thursday of November should have been and was a 
day of Thanksgiving to the Americans in France and to the 
Americans in the United States. 

This is a pretty sad little Thanksgiving Day on the whole . . . 
and where do you think I have had my turkey! No turkey, and all 
alone down in the restaurant, where there were about six other lonely 
diners. For the Crillon n existe plus, so they told me this afternoon, 
when I arrived. It has been requisitionne pour les Americair^s — The 
Government — the host of Peace delegates with Lansing at their head, 
and they have taken the Murat's house in the rue Monceau for 
Monsieur le President. 

To-day was another _;o«r defete, for the King of England came, and 
soldiers lined the Avenue du Bois, and the Champs Elysees, and the 
streets were packed in spite of the rain, for the wonderful weeks of the 
finest weather that Paris has ever seen are over, and we are in for 4 
or 5 months of gloom and drizzle as of old . . . I was in no mood to 
join a big dinner of about 40 to-night at the Maurice, although your 
son Elliot was there. It was Stettinius's dinner and they are going to 
the Folies Bergeres, but I just ducked, and came back here to this 
empty hotel, which is being cleaned for les Americains, and there are 
about six guests left, although Paris is full to overflowing. Willard 
Straight is here and pretty sick, I fear, with pneumonia, although he 
is holding his own well to-day and I think will pull through all right. 

I brought down with me to-day Senator Jim Wadsworth [United 
States Senator from the State of New York], who passed last night 
with me, but I did not dine at home with him for I was bidden to dine 
at the C. inC.'s with his Majesty. To-day the C. in C. and his staff 
officers and the French, Belgian, Italian, and American Chefs de 
Mission went to the station at Montreuil to see the King off in his 
private train, and then I started for Paris, and beat him to it without 
hurrying, for it takes me just four hours without stopping. I am so 
annoyed at not being able to come to the Crillon any more after this 
week that I am looking for a pied a terre, but as everyone else is doing 
the same thing there are none to be had. I may want to come with 
my Chief and his A. D. C. and if I could get Marie Van Vorst's flat, or 
something like it I would take it now, and then I should be ready for 
you ... if the spirit moves you to come before my exile is over. 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 417 

You have won out so handsomely with the American Ambulance 
that I would like you to see it again, and there will be American boys 
there I fear for some time, although it may be gradually evacuated. 
Do you realize yet that the fighting is over!! I don't, and I have 
never been so "let down" in my life, and just go about attending to 
details, and wondering what is going to happen next. . . . 

Bob and G. will never quite get over not even getting over here, and 
will imagine that they have missed a lot, but it is certainly not their 
fault — just the inexorable fate, and what they have done and con- 
tributed is much more important, although less conspicuous, and they 
may well be proud of themselves as I am of them. 

Doubtless everybody with red blood in his veins was sorry not 
to get over. But after a while the bitterness wears off, for the 
feeling is really one of bitterness. The world is busy adjusting 
itself to new conditions and few people have time or care to 
think of others. Colonel Bacon was so deep in the war, it had 
meant so much in his life, indeed it was his life for four long 
years and more, that he could not quite bring himself to feel or 
see that it was over. 

Dec. 4, 191 8 
Hotel Crillon. 

This isn't a "doke" . . . that I am writing on this paper, but 
faute de jnieux. The Crillon has been taken by the Unifed States, 
God bless them, and I am allowed here only for the night, because 
there isn't another bed to be had in Paris, and my old friends here 
took pity on me when I arrived this evening from Montreuil. The 
U. S. does not arrive till next week! and who do you suppose is com- 
ing! Jamesie!! but of course you know it. I am all of a twitter at 
the thought of seeing him and talking about you. Well, these are 
hectic days for me of a different kind from those of the past few 
years. 

I am nervous and restless and fly about more than ever trying to 
keep my two chiefs and their respective armies and nations together! 

Saturday I left here, spent the night at Chalons, and lunched with 
General Pershing in Luxembourg, remained two hours, and started 
back by way of Metz, arriving here Monday, off again the same day 
for Montreuil, found Sir Douglas the next day at La Touquet, 
played 18 holes of golf with him. That was yesterday and here I am 
again in Paris! . . . 

I must have a place for Sir Douglas and for you when you come in a 



41 8 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

few weeks! There isn't a room of any kind and the hotels are all 
taken and prices are soaring. . . . 

I may not be here for more than a day or so at a time once a month, 
but I must have a place and I am counting on your coming, although 
the old Government may be nasty enough to prevent it. This paper 
is off some slabs of chocolate that I got at Rabattets on the strength of 
my being your husband. I told the lady that we had had many a 
candy on our table from her shop, and she remembered you perfectly, 
of course, and sold me a large amount of chocolate for Ett, although 
it was against the rule, and now I have no more ink in my pen so good- 
night. 

The Government did refuse to give Mrs. Bacon a passport 
as it was against the rule for the wife of an officer even to visit 
France. Abuses in the early days of the war had led to a general 
prohibition which worked hardship in many a worthy case. 

Hotel de Crillon, Dec. 5, '18. 

I had a disappointment to-day in the shape of a cable from . . . 
saying she was "so sorry, but had promised the apartment to some- 
one else," a way of speaking I suppose . . . but I did care a lot, 
because I am sort of upset and restless, and had set my heart on having 
a place in case you come, and to invite Sir D. H. to. In fact, I have 
already invited him, and he has accepted, and now I haven't any 
place. . . 

Paris has been completely "retaken," and is seething and prices are 
soaring. Thousands are gathering for the Peace Conference, as if it 
were a large spectacle, while it seems to me a most solemn moment, 
the future of a large part of the human race depending as it does upon 
the wisdom, unselfishness, and calm judgment of these men, who seem 
to be gloating over the prospect of months and months of " peace con- 
ferences," and what they call gay life in Paris. Faugh ! It makes me 
sick, and I am all out of joint with it. The same old crowds are here 
dining at the Ritz with apparently no thought of the awful solemnity 
of these coming months. 

Are you coming. . . . If you do, we will hide away somewhere, 
and I will take you out into the country, if I can get away, where the 
real things are, and you can go to your hospital daily to your heart's 
content, till the end, which may not be far off. . . . 

As for me, all I want is to get safely into port after a stormy voyage. 
I feel as if I had sprung a leak and am not good for much but to lie at 
anchor in some safe cove like those old hulks at New Bedford or Edgar- 
town. Come over if you can . . . and see the poor old world. 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 419 

as it has been torn to pieces by those dastardly Huns. Was there 
ever such a cowardly skunk as that cringing Kaiser! Swine is too 
good a name for him. I am glad they are beginning to demand his 
trial in earnest. He must be condemned, at least officially, by some 
competent Court. Public opinion and ostracism will do the rest — 
sudden death of any kind would be too good for him. He must suffer 
from his own remorse and repentance. 

We must all take up life anew and make it a better one if we can but 
human nature is weak, oh so weak, and returns easily to its excesses 
and selfish amusements, and easily forgets. 

You and I have a good deal to be thankful for . . . and we 
have enough to do to help, if we can, our four little families. ... I 
am such a slave to this old Army that I cannot even guess what is 
going to become of me. General Pershing especially wanted to be 
remembered to you when I saw him at Luxembourg on Sunday.. 

We have some hard times ahead, but alas! I shall be out of it. 
What a shame that Root was not given the leading Dart! 

In a letter of December 7th, Colonel Bacon tells of celebra- 
tions in the returned provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, which 
were the fruits of victory just as their loss in 1871 was the con- 
sequence of defeat. Many a Frenchman would envy Colonel 
Bacon the chance of being present and not a few of his fellow 
countrymen would have congratulated themselves if they 
could have taken part in la joyeuse entree into Metz, the strong 
city, Metz, from which Lafayette set out for the United States, 
and into Strassburg, the capital and chief city of Alsace. 

Just a minute . . . while I am waiting for our old friend, 
Colonel T. Bentley Mott,^ who is now attached to Foch, and has been 
most useful and helpful as usual. The getting together and keeping 
together of all these ^roj legumes in the trying after the war conditions, 
is a difficult job. To-morrow is a big day at Metz, and the day after 
at Strassburg, and I may'yxm^ this afternoon and put her through, for 
Sir Douglas will be there and John J. Pershing, and Foch and Petain 
et id omne genus, and I am counting on taking Sir Douglas to visit 
Gen'l P. in a few days, when Kings and Presidents have settled 
down. . . . 

I hope to be off in a few days over our L. of C.^ with Harbord and 

*A Colonel in the American Army, Military Attache to Mr, Bacon during his Em- 
bassy. 

*Line of Communication. 



420 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

McCoy and a party from British G. H. Q., and the Q. M. G. and others, 
but everything changes every minute, one never knows. . . . 

Colonel Bacon went, of course, to Metz and Strassburg, and 
of course he wrote to Mrs. Bacon about it all. This is what he 
said under date of December 13th; 

Several days have passed . . . and I haven't told you of my 
trip to Strassburg. Well, to make a long story short, Bendey Mott and 
I started last Saturday, at about 4 p. m., for Metz and way stations. 
. We arrived there at 5:30 a. m, after several contretemps 
and after an hour or so sleep in the hospital, which by the way is hav- 
ing a miserable time and experience taking care of returning French 
prisoners who are too sick to go any further, and many of them dying 
(six died that day), and Georgette St. Paul is practically alone running 
the whole show with very little help. She asked for you and Sister. 
We went on to Metz where we found Gen'l Pershing on his private 
train, Poincare, Clemenceau, Foch, Petain, Sir Douglas, and a "big 
time," and speeches and flags and bands playing all day. We were 
starting back but Gen'l Pershing invited me to come on to Strass- 
burg with him which we did that night, arriving in time to begin it 
all over again the next morning, and it was gayer still, and as the day 
wore on and the civilians joined in the military procession in groups 
and organizations, thousands in all their bright costumes of old 
Alsace, especially women and girls, old and young, and veterans of'70. 
The really spontaneous and genuine joy and gladness were wonderful 
and, as usual, made me cry like a child. 

I had forgotten that there could be so many happy people left in the 
world. The women and girls danced and sang as they marched past 
the Tribune to the inspiring music of the French military marches, the 
Chani du depart, the Sambre et Meuse and the others that you know, 
and all day everyone was smiling and humming the Marseillaise. 
It was really fine! 

I lunched with Tibby Mott and two French officers at Valentin's, a 
famous litde French restaurant and gaily ordered fresh joie gras, 
which was delicious, a bottle of good wine, and then wandered about 
all afternoon in the crowds, and stood for hours packed in near the 
Tribune watching Poincare kiss as many girls as he could reach— he 
and Clemenceau, and the Generals showered with flowers. I never 
realized how many different kinds of costumes there were in Alsace. 
All the surrounding towns sent bevies, and the caps and the gowns 
and aprons were all the colors of the rainbow, and the little lace 
bonnets. 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 421 

Good old Seraphine would have jumped for joy. It is now Friday 
again, I believe, and I have been back two days. I am not going to 
Spa_>r/, but expect to-morrow to go with the Q. M. G. on our trip with 
General Harbord where I hope to see dear good McCoy and be back 
again by the 19th when the C. in C. and his immediate high Staff 
officers go to London to see the King, but without troops. I dined 
with the C. in C. last night — just the C. G. S. and two A. D. C.'s — 
and the Chief broke me all up after dinner by giving me his photo- 
graph in a nice leather frame with his autograph for me "with his 
grateful remembrance of my practical help during a year of many 
difficulties." Wasn't it sweet of him! And when he asked me where 
I was going for Xmas, it all came over me with a rush that there was 
again to be no Xmas for me ... I have no place to go. Nearly 
everyone will be gone from here, and there is no one in Paris to whom 
I can go. I cannot get leave again for Ett to come to me, and I 
doubt if I can get to him, so it's pretty doleful. 

There are only two people in England to whom I might go — Mrs. 
Teddy Grenfell, who is a dear . . . and Nancy Astor who has 
so many children that it would be sort of a comfort to see them. 
If I am entirely deserted here I may go over for a day or so. — Oh how 
I wish I might fly home to you. 

Colonel Bacon went to London and he describes in a letter of 
December 21st his doings as if he had torn out a few pages from 
his "line a day book," which, however, he did not keep. 

In all these emotional days and hours . . . when, as you can 
imagine, I am thrilled to the core, and laugh and cry alternately 
through the days, I long for you. ... I have made one or two 
attempts to talk to you these last hectic days, but each time something 
has broken in after the first few lines, and I have had to postpone. 

Now I am all alone for half an hour or so in the nice warm library 
of Gen. Biddle and Col. Griscom, where the welcome has been warmer 
still, and I hardly know how to begin to tell you a little of the crowded 
hours of the last ten days. I must begin backward. I came over 
day before yesterday with Sir Douglas and his Army Commanders 
and personal staff — a great privilege on their so-called "unofficial" 
triumphal homecoming. The papers have probably described it all 
to you, but no words of mine can begin to tell you what it all meant to 
me. You can guess I had been away on our L. of C. with General 
Harbord, McCoy, and Dawes, taking with me, by the hand, Gen'l 
Travers Clarke, the British Q.M.G., and three of his officers for a visit 
of inspection in Gen'l Harbord's special train, and I am proud and 



422 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

pleased to have brought it about after many weeks of obstacles and 
difficulties. We had a most interesting and useful trip to the great 
harbor works of Bordeaux, the supply depots and camps, and repair 
§hops and all the other marvels, real miracles of construction and prep- 
aration for the great war, which thank God is over, and needs them 
no more. Well, we left Bordeaux, the Q.M.G. and I, at 8 o'clock in 
the evening, after a good bottle and a fresh /o/> gras de canard at the 
Chapon Fin, on a regular night train for Paris and after sitting up all 
night, arrived at 8 the next morning, just in time to jump into my 
beautiful Rolls Royce and start for home (Montreuil) to catch the 
afternoon boat for London to arrive the night before the C. in C. and 
be here to see him enter the city, and Buckingham Palace, where my 
old friend Jim Thresher was to provide me with a pass; but on my 
arrival at Montreuil a telephone from Chaumont directed me to con- 
fer upon the Army Commanders and Chief of Staff, good Sir Herbert 
Lawrence, the American D. S. M. in the name of General Pershing, 
and informed me that the medals would arrive sometime during the 
night, as they were all to leave with Sir Douglas at seven the next 
morning. 

The medals did not arrive in time, but I came without them under 
instructions to notify the Army Commanders in any event, after first 
asking the consent and approval of the C. in C, all of which I did one 
after the other on the memorable voyage by boat and train to Dover 
and London. I have never performed any duty with greater pride 
and pleasure, as you can well imagine. 

The medals have come on by special courier and I am to present 
them Monday or Tuesday at the War Office. I don't know however 
I can do it without breaking down. You know. This may keep me 
over here till after Xmas and the President is arriving on Boxing Day. 
I shall go to Jim Thresher's and take his little girl a small present, and 
perhaps go to Nancy Astor's and to Teddy Grenfell's where I dined 
enjamille last night. Griscom took me to dine with Jean Ward night 
before last, and I went on to a small party afterward, but I am like a 
fish out of water except in some quiet house. I shall try to find Susan 
Chapin if she is still here. I shall call on the new Ambassador to- 
day.^ I wish I could have had Ett with me, somewhere, but he is 
tied to his battery, where, I do not know, playing the game and having 
a pretty poor time, but with prospects, so I allow myself to believe, 
of going home, possibly among the first 6 or 8 divisions, which might 



ijohn W. Davis (1873- ). Member of the House of Representatives, from West 
Virginia (1911-1915); Solicitor-General of the United States (1913-1918), Ambassador 
to Great Britain, succeeding Mr. Page (1918-1921). Resigned, and upon his return to 
the United States engaged in the practice of law in New York City. 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 423 

bring him back before three or four months, or even sooner. I will 
let you know by cable if possible the minute I can get the least defi- 
nite inkling. For me, alas, there seems to be no prospect or indication 
and I can hardly face the winter and spring, but we shall know more 
in a month or two. I must run now. . . . It was too mean of them 
to refuse your passport. . . . 

Colonel Bacon wrote in the letter of December 26th: 

41 Upper Grosvenor St. 

London. 

Christmas has gone . . . and it was a pretty doleful day for 
me. I didn't have the courage to go to Cliveden as I expected to do, 
nor to Thresher's, so I poked about London, lunched alone at Clar- 
idge's, and dined here with Gen'l Biddle and two aides, Capt. Howard 
Henry and Lieut. Mackie, all of whom know Priscilla well, of course. 
Gen'l Biddle has been kindness itself to a forlorn outsider and what 
little comfort I have had has been sitting in this nice room before the 
fire, Griscom having gone away for Xmas. 

I called on Jean Ward yesterday, gave her a book, and saw her 
nice boy, who is home for the holidays. At lunch at Claridge's Ian 
Malcolm came over and insisted that I should join his family party, 
his wife and three nice boys home from school, which I did, and en- 
joyed immensely. Then I took Senator Jim Wadsworth, who had 
appeared from France, to two hospitals in search of a wounded New 
York boy, who had gone back to America, and then I called on my 
friend General Dawney, whom I found in the midst of a big children's 
party, so I stayed a few minutes and saw them fish for presents, and 
thought of you. I have not yet found all my Army Commanders, be- 
cause they are out of town, but I hope to finish it up to-morrow, and 
the next day, go back to my post where I have left Captain Bryant all 
alone. Then I shall go to Spa, and open some rooms, or a small 
villa where visiting and wandering Americans can find shelter. 
Thence I expect to go on to the Rhine bridgeheads at Cologne and 
Coblenz, and shall work as hard as ever I can to keep up the liaison 
between the British and American H. Q's and armies. It will be 
difficult to amuse and interest the men for the months that seem to be 
ahead, and I am bent on arranging my interchange of visits for both 
officers and men. . . 

I had a fine lunch at Cliveden last Sunday — 7ne and seven children, 
Nancy being late. Bill did the honors, home from school, and Wink 
and David and Michael and Jacob, and Nora's two children, and I had 
a mask and explained to David how I had come down the chimney. 
He is the cunningest thing you ever saw. 



424 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

I found General Plumer and presented my little medal, and choked 
and gulped of course, as I always do, but I don't care for he had tears 
in his eyes himself. I met his wife and daughter. . . . Then I 
found the C. G. S., my only General Lawrence, who with his sweet wife 
were the most pathetic mortals, and I blubbered again, and could think 
of nothing but their two boys gone — their only boys. We have not 
had to pay the great sacrifice which we were ready to pay, and we 
must never cease to sympathize with these poor people who have given 
everything. 

I must off now to find my other Army Commanders, Byng, Home, 
and Birdwood, if they have come back to town. 

The President arrives to-day, and will have a wonderful reception. 
The whole way from Charing Cross to Buckingham Palace is deco- 
rated with Venetian masts and flags and flowers, and the King 
and Queen, if you please, are going to Charing Cross to meet him!!! 
What do you think of that? It is unfortunate that he is coming in 
the middle of their Xmas hohday, but England is turning itself inside 
out, and I hope our whole country will realize what it means and re- 
spond (more heartily than they have done). Surely they must 
understand how England is reaching out her hand and heart to us. 
They must be made to understand. I am going to the Berkeley to see 
them go by at 2 o'clock. 

Gen. Biddle and his aides have gone to Dover to meet his "nibs," 
and London is all agog. The streets will be packed. A wit here 
remarked that the President had better hurry home, or he might 
find that the United States had become a republic in his absence. 
Of course I am tremendously interested in the cabled report of 
Lodge's speech and warning in the matters of the famous 14 points, 
and the significance of the Senate's possible position on this ques- 
tion. 

Peace must be imposed upon the boche first of all, i?nposed not 
negotiated, then we will leave the "Freedom of the Seas" and the 
League of Nations ... to work out. 

Was there ever such a calamity as not having Root here to guide and 
teach them! How he would tower above them all, in his practical 
wisdom, his sympathy and understanding, and his word would be 
law, for there is no one in the world whose opinion would carry such 
conviction in the minds of European statesmen. . . . 

Christmas was spent in London, New Year's in Brunehaut- 
pre, near Montreuil, which Colonel Bacon, in one of his letters, 
called home. From there he wrote the last letter of 191 8, on 
the last day of the year: 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 425 

Brunehautpre 
Dec. 31, 1918. 

This is a pretty sad little New Year's Eve . . . and lonely. I 
am all alone, having just arrived from London to find a cheerless, cold, 
and empty house, and I came away just to be queer, I think, and to 
satisfy a puritanical feeHng that I'd better do the unpleasant thing, as 
I generally do, out of a sense of what? Duty! — and thereby cut off 
my own nose and please nobody. 

I was in no mood though to stay in London having found and deco- 
rated all my generals and army commanders and having no excuse 
to stay although I was rather tempted to stop over New Year's day 
with General Biddle and Griscom who were going to a gay New Year's 
Eve party to-night. I spent Sunday night with Thresher and saw the 
Faversham's house in the village, the nicest old village you ever saw. 
I took a small Xmas present to the "eldest unmarried daughter," aged 
eight. The other two children were six and two, and the father-in- 
law's name was Ramsey, who knew and remembered William Cocks! 
The world is small. On the way down to Surrey, I stopped off with 
Griscom and played golf at the most attractive place belonging to the 
young Duke and Duchess of Sutherland. She is terribly attractive 
and was Lady Eileen Butler. You would have been crazy about the 
house, a most perfect specimen built about Henry VIII, of the most 
wonderful old brick, and tapestries and oak panels in rooms 120 feet 
long. Last night I dined with Moreton Frewen who had eight in- 
teresting men to meet me, mostly M.P.'s of the new big coalition 
majority. Aren't these wonderful times? The President's reception 
was indeed remarkable, and now for the Peace Conference! 

Mrs. Wilson and her lady-in-waiting certainly had a big time — 
banquets and gold services and fayre ladies and toasts and speeches 
and Kings and Queens, and Earls and Dukes till you can't 
think. . . . 

She appeared very well, however, and made a good impression, being 
natural and unaffected. 

She told someone that she supposed they expected her to give a big 
war whoop and wear a large feather, as they thought she was de- 
scended from Pocahontas. . . . 

I may be off again to-morrow, or next day, as I am restless, and 
my C. in C. is still in England. I played golf one morning with him 
and Lady Haig, but we could not finish as the two little girls were in 
a nip to go to a pantomime. I may go to Spa and open my hotel for 
American officers and wandering British, and I may go on to Cologne 
and Coblenz, or I may go to Paris to get my letters from you, which 
I feel sure are waiting at M., H. & Co. 



426 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

I cannot wait much longer, and Davy, who arrived Saturday, 
frightened me by saying you had been sick, but were up again. . . . 
The New Year begins to-morrow. If it can only be a happy one for 
you. . . . 'Tis all I ask. . . . 

Colonel Bacon got to Spa, but the trip could hardly be called 
one of pleasure. He speaks of it, and of other things, in his 
first letter of the New Year, written on January 4th: 

Hotel-Villa des Palmiers 

Jan. 4th, '19. 

Don't be alarmed by this paper. . . . I have not come here for my 
health and I am afraid that this dirty little hotel does not live up to 
the advantages set forth above. I am in the "Salon de lecture et 
de conversation,'' but as I am all alone there will be no conversation 
except with you . . . for a little while before I crawl into a cold 
bed. I have had a busy day, breakfasted with the Army Commander 
at his Chateau de Daves near Namur where I passed the night, left him, 
Gen'l Sir Henry Rawlinson and his officers, at the country place of a 
Belgian Count shooting partridges on my way to Bruxelles where I 
lunched alone, returned to Namur, where I met General Currie, 
commanding the Canadians, by appointment, decorated him by order 
of General Pershing, with our D. S. M., in the name of our Govern- 
ment, started at 3 -.30 for Liege and here I am at Spa, lately the G, H. Q. 
of the boche, and now part of an advanced G. H. Q. of the B. E. F. 

To-morrow I shall call on some of my friends and start for Aachen 
and Cologne to call upon more friends, then probably up the Rhine 
to Bonn and to Coblenz, to see our own Third Army, and back either 
to Paris or Chaumont, en route to Montreuil. I am weary and rest- 
less and not fit to associate with any one. I am peevish and irritable 
and nervous and think of nothing but going home. I do pity poor 
Etty with nothing to do and nothing to look forward to. The anti- 
climax is demoralizing, and the next few months are going to be 
difficult for everybody. 

The Peace Conference will begin "I suppose" in another ten days or 
so. Lloyd George and the President seem to be satisfied with their 
preliminary canter, and old Clemenceau has spoken out with no un- 
certain tones. Thousands of Americans, Greeks, Servians, Italians, 
Japs, Chinks, and Siamese for all I know, and Portuguese and Ruman- 
ians and Czecho Slovaks and Jugo Slavs are infesting Paris and there 
isn't a bed to be had, so I shall probably have to sleep with Davy 
if I go there. . . . 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 427 

This is a cheap sort of a watering place, where Belgian and some 
French and others used to come, but the landlady, a Belgian whose 
husband is lying dangerously wounded, tells me that the boches 
didn't come before the war. For the last eight months there have 
been over one hundred of them messing in this house with their own 
cooks and servants. 

It is hard to realize that they have gone for ever and I hope and 
pray that all their power for evil will be destroyed beyond recovery, 
and that for generations they will be made to suffer, and sink to the 
lowest class of nations, so that they and all the world will realize 
what they have done. Their children's children should never be al- 
lowed to forget. 

The insidious, lying propaganda has already begun again, and the 
boche nation is being fed with stories of their heroism, and of their 
unbeaten army, which is to rise again. The people know little of the 
truth and fully expect to be received again into the bosom of the 
world, and ply their noisome trade and business uber alles, and flaunt 
their unspeakable vulgarity in our faces. Let there be no senti- 
mental softening of our resolve that they shall be ostracized in every 
way. Let all our women live up to the papers they have signed. 
Only so can the rotten skunks be made to feel and understand. I 
despise them more than ever. . . . 

What will Caspar do? He must talk to someone. Tell him to 
write to Joe Cotton and ask his advice. He is right I think not to go 
on with G.,S.,&S. and he can make any place he wants for himself 
anywhere — as a lawyer or as a public servant, either in Boston or 
New York or in Washington, and I know no one better able to play a 
big part, and cope with all the big problems that are going to con- 
front the world for the next twenty or thirty years, when he will be 
just in his prime. 

Would that I were not too old and could tackle them with him, but 
my part is practically finished. I am too old to fight any more 
effectively and I long for a few more years with you, quietly otiian 
cum dignitate. Wouldn't it have been wonderful for me if I could 
have been in the Senate now! My regret is more keen than ever. 
To have been on the Committee on Foreign Affairs at this juncture 
would have been worth while. Tell Job Hedges how deeply I regret 
and how grateful I am to him for [what] he did. . . . 



Colonel Bacon pushed on to the Rhine and his letter from 
Coblenz gives a vivid picture of what he saw in the occupied 
region. 



428 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Jan. 7. 

And what do you think of this . . . Am looking out of the window 
marked above upon a warm sunny day at 9:30 in the morning, wait- 
ing for Col. Jim Crow Rhea^ to get me a map, and show me the road 
out across the Rhine, 25 kilometres through our Bridgehead to the 
First Division where I hope to find Ted and Kermit. I came down the 
Rhine road yesterday from Cologne, where I had spent the night at 
the Wilhelmshof just opposite the Cathedral. You can hardly 
imagine the picture of Cologne, crowded, literally packed with 
British soldiers, and millions of boches, almost as many as there are 
in New York, the gayest looking and the most prosperous place you 
ever saw, lighted up like the Great White Way in its palmiest days, 
every shop ablaze and the crowded streets as light as day and plenty 
of everything, cakes and sugar to be bought in the shops, although the 
hotels keep up the camouflage about scarcity of some things. 

We had for dinner beef, chicken, and hare, and plenty of vegetables. 
I had a dinner party consisting of my friend Major Piggott with whom 
I used to mess at G. H. Q. I wrote you a line from Spa. Well, I 
motored on the next day to Aachen where I lunched in a common 
little restaurant on good brown bread and cheese and coffee, and then 
on to Cologne through the British area. I called upon the Army 
Commander whom I had left only the other day in London, the 
military governor and other officers of my acquaintance. You should 
see the crowds, thousands standing all day in front of the hotels where 
these Plumes Blanches have their Headquarters watching with in- 
tense interest the two British sentries straighten up, click their 
heels in their inimitable way, and salute every officer who goes in or 
out the door. The crowd never seems to tire of this performance, 
which happens every fifteen seconds through the day. 

Cologne has made a deep impression upon me, all my views strength- 
ened and confirmed as to the severity of the conditions that must be 
imposed upon the boche, to bring home to him the truth, and to 
prevent his pestiferous penetration either by force or by cunning 
overrunning the world. To combat this I hereby dedicate my few 
remaining and declining years. I had a thrill this morning when 
Reveille sounded across the Rhine from American bugles and jumped 
to my window and stood at salute with a lump in my throat when at 
8 o'clock colors was sounded, and the American flag went up on the 
American Flag Ship lying in front of this hotel. For, if you please, 
we have a fleet of fine river craft policing the Rhine and rendering 
eflFective the blockade, and Jimmy Logan, who directs it all as G. I., 

'Colonel Rhea's name was James Cooper Rhea, hence Colonel Bacon's travesty — a 
liberty which he sometimes took with intimate friends. 




o 



5 S 



2Q 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 429 

lives in the big office building, which you see next the hotel, requisi- 
tioned from the Ober-President of this whole region, whose yacht is 
the Flag Ship of the American patrol, manned by marines and painted 
khaki colour. I must leave you now. 

(Afternoon of same day.) 

I am just back from a trip into the Bridgehead across the Rhine be- 
hind Ehrenbreitstein, which is just in front of my windows. I found 
Ted and lunched with his mess and his new colonel. 

It's too bad that all promotions were held up and Ted did not get 
his full colonelcy, although he has been in sole command of his regi- 
ment for two months, and has three palms for his croix de guerre^ and 
will have the Legion d'Honneiir^ but, better than all that, has won the 
respect and approval of the entire U. S. Army, and high praise from 
all his senior officers. Tell his father from me that every one is de- 
lighted too that Ted has made good, and done so well, not a single 
word of jealousy or envy have I heard, or criticism, which is "going 
some" in the Army. 

I hadn't time to go to see Kermit because Col. Biddle, Nick's 
brother, went with me, and was in a hurry to get back as he had to go 
to Cologne where he is to be Liaison Officer with the 2nd British Army, 
To-morrow I start back by way of Trier and Chaumont, because I 
want, if possible, to find Ett, and I don't know where he is, and can 
find out only at Chaumont. So you see I am having a real joy 
ride. . . . 

The next few months are clothed in mystery for me. I have no idea 
what is going to happen, but I hope I shall find out before my temper 
and nervous system break down entirely. 

Two days later, on the 9th, Colonel Bacon writes from fami- 
liar surroundings — the Grand Hotel de France, where he first 
put up in Chaumont, and where with Bishop Brent and in 
Colonel Bacon's old house they talked of Mr. Roosevelt who 
had just died: 

The wheel of fortune has brought me back here to Chaumont 
. , . and I have just spent a delightful evening with Bishop Brent 
at his little house, 4 rue du Palais, where we talked long of Theodore. 
I cannot yet quite believe that we have lost that great, wonderful 
vital force, just as we were going to rally around it again for every- 
thing that is good. His great genius for leadership is gone, and the 
world's loss is irreparable. 

My own sense of personal loss is very, very profound. I realize 



430 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

that I was depending upon his moral support for everything that 
seems most dear and worth while in this struggle which is coming. 

The war is not over. The fighting has stopped to be sure, the 
primal, brutal phase, but now the more difficult, complex problems 
must be tackled, and the "times that try one's soul" are before us 
with none of the beautiful, the heroic, to temper the agony as it did 
through the fighting, and Theodore's great personality, his remarkable 
vision, his courage and untiring energy to help us are gone, just at this 
time when the forces of conservatism and sanity are struggling to re- 
turn. There never has been a time when his leadership and example 
were more necessary. It is a national calamity. 

I saw Ted and Kermit on Monday, and later Monday night the 
news came to my room at two in the morning, uncertain at first, but 
confirmed by the wireless which I had sent during the night. I de- 
cided to go to the boys, and went first to get Dick, which I did, 
and took him out to the boys. They decided that Dick should be 
the one to go home, so I waited and started with him at six that eve- 
ning, arriving at Treves, of ancient Roman fame, at midnight. 

It is doubtful if Mr. Roosevelt has ever had a finer tribute 
than that from Colonel Bacon written in his loneliness at 
Chaumont: 

On again yesterday down the Moselle to Metz, where in the Ca- 
thedral stands the late, unspeakable Kaiser garbed in the robes of a 
Saint! Can you believe it!! — in lasting stone! 

It is true that the Kaiser stands in stone. Not in the garb of 
a saint, however, but as the prophet Daniel, with mustachios 
brushed up as were the Kaiser's, and within the gaze of the 
public. Colonel Bacon does not relate an incident which he 
probably might have passed on to Mrs. Bacon. Upon the 
exit of the hated Germans from Metz the youngsters of the 
place procured a placard upon which they had printed: Sic 
transit gloria mundi. They climbed the facade of the Cathe- 
dral and fastened it to the statue where it still remains or where 
it was many months after the Armistice. 

Then on through the night to Pont a Mousson,Toul, and by a round- 
about way to Neuf-Chateau and here, where by a lucky chance I 
found two beds in a room at midnight, after being twelve hours on the 
journey. 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 431 

Much has happened to-day. Happiest and best of all the morn- 
ing paper contains a list with your dear name in it for the Legion 
d" Honneur, and I am so glad. It is the least that they can do for 
you, and it does them honor. . . . 

They are going to give me one next week, which I am coming back 
here for with some thirty others. I am very proud to be included. 

Colonel Bacon had refused the Grande Croix with which the 
French Government had wished to honour him upon his 
resignation as Ambassador. It was contrary to the spirit if not 
the letter of the Constitution which forbids, without the consent 
of Congress, an officer of the United States to accept "title of 
any kind whatever from any king, prince, or foreign state." 
He was happy, and happier to receive the grade of Officer for 
Military Service. 

Colonel Bacon was not very sure of the date of his next letter. 
It was written from Paris somewhere about January loth: 

I have just opened my Christmas package which you sent by Mrs. 
Jamesie [Scott] . . . and my eyes are wet. The gloves and 
books and chocolate and socks are all from you and I love them, — 
but before I sit down to begin the "Four Horses" I must tell you why 
I no longer like to come to Paris, why I no longer love my Paris. In 
the first place I am out of house and home. I have been four times 
to see Jamesie to-day but have not seen him: — first to his office in 
the old Cercle Royale, Place de la Concorde. I was told that I 
couldn't enter the building and go upstairs without a pass; I then 
tried to see him at dinner time at the Crillon. Nothing doing — 
again after dinner I went to the Crillon and was told by an obse- 
quious young American that if I wanted to see someone special I 
should have to go with an orderly. I left disgusted, and bit my 
own nose off, as I was looking forward to a good hour or so with 
Jamesie. No use. . . . This is no place for me, and I am off 
to-morrow. 

Last night and to-night I am sleeping in the Hotel du Louvre, 
Officers' hotel of the Red Cross, and although a mighty good institu- 
tion it is dreadfully dreary for me to be herded in with hundreds of 
hopeless captains and lieutenants with no one to speak to in my Paris 
— but I am having my little Christmas party on the third floor where 
there is heat and a bathroom, so what more should I desire? I was 
left alone for dinner, Davy having a Red Cross affair and Jamesie 
inaccessible, so I went around the corner to Maxim's where I have 
dined alone many times since the beginning of the war, and was told 



432 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

that I could not be served as I was a milltaire! So I went on to the 
Ritz where I dined alone in the corner. . . . How is that for a 
congenial Paris? . . . 

To-day I lunched with Harry White [Ex-Ambassador to France 
and a member of the Peace Conference] and learned much of things 
at home, and why he came instead of Root. 

I am perfectly delighted that they gave you the Legion d'Honneur 
as I cabled to-day. I am to be kissed on both cheeks myself on the 
14th at Chaumont and I am really mighty pleased to be remembered 
by these poor people. If you could only come and get yours. 

From Bonnetable Colonel Bacon writes on January 20th: 

Do you remember the name of this old place . . . near Le 
Mans, southwest of Chartres and belongs to Doudeauville, who is La 
Rochefoucauld and she was a Radziwill. Of course you remember. 
But what brings me here? Here is Headquarters of the Second 
Corps, on their way home, and the two splendid divisions 27th and 
30th that broke the Hindenburg Line for me are near by and four 
others, and to-morrow the C. in C. is coming to review them one by 
one and confer D. S. M's. I am delighted to be here and it was by 
the merest chance. Day before yesterday, when I got home to Brune- 
hautpre, I found a nice letter from General Simonds, Chief of Staff, 
asking me to make him a visit, for you know I am godfather to the 
Second Corps and they are all very sweet to me. Well, yesterday 
after having Franklin Roosevelt [then Assistant Secretary of the 
Navy] and his wife and six others to lunch, I suddenly thought I 
would start at once because my C. in C. Sir D. is away for a few days, 
so off I started for Paris where I spent the night in Mott's little apart- 
ment and then on to-day five hours more to here to find them in this 
charming old chateau, 15th century, and rambling all over the 
place. One big wing has been a hospital depuis la guerre and here are 
ensconced General Reed and General Simonds, and I am writing up 
in an old tower. I hadn't the slightest idea General Pershing was 
coming and am looking forward to a "big time" to-morrow and next 
day. 

How far did I get in my last letter? I went to Chaumont on the 
13th and on the 14th was given the Legion d'Honneur, officier^ and 
Croix de Guerre with palms by General Petain himself and of course 
I bawled — right in front of General Pershing and the whole com- 
pany. It was a great occasion and I was very proud to be chosen 
among the twenty highest officers of our Army — from General Liggett 
and BuUard to Genl McCoy and Colonel Logan. We all stood up in 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 433 

the caserne at Chaumont with Genl Pctain and General Pershing 
in the middle, and French troops and American troops and the band, 
and Genl Petain pinned on the decoration and told us why he did it, 
and you can just see poor old me.^ 

I came back to Paris that same day with General Harbord in his 
car with McCoy and Logan and after a long visit next day with 
Jamesie hiked back to Montreuil. I was awfully disappointed not 
to get Ett to come to Chaumont. I telephoned him twice but he was 
away with his General and did not come, although I left a message 
for him to come if possible. I hope he is glad that he went to the ist 
Corps." I am sure he will be unless the 77th should go home before 
he can get away which would be a disappointment. His work will 
certainly be more interesting and congenial now that there is nothing 
to do but keep his battery amused and well. 

Two days later Colonel Bacon is back at Bonnetable, where 
he began a letter on January 22nd to be finished later in Paris: 

I have had a great day since I wrote you in this room night before 
last, and I am staying on till to-morrow morning before I start back 
to my home in the North, where I expect to arrive by the time my 
British C. in C. gets back from England. I felt a little guilty at 
being caught A. W. O. L. yesterday morning when the C. in C. ar- 
rived with Boyd and Bowditch and Quek to review the 30th, and 
confer decorations. First, there was a reception here in a splendid 
big salle in one of the wings with a separate flight of broad steps lead- 
ing into the Garden by the pond where the black swans live. The 
sun streamed in, and so did all the officers of the 30th and 27th and 

^The citation for the Croix de Guerre which Mr. Bacon deeply appreciated, although 
he would never tell why it was awarded, was as follows: 
Citation a Vordre de I'armee 
Le Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Bacon 
Chef de la Mission Mi lit aire 
Aupres du G.H.^. Britannique. 
Officier superieur de haute valeur professionnelle et morale. A comme Ambassadeur des 
£tats-Unis en France, puissamment contrihue au reserrement des liens d'amitie unissant 
les deux nations. Nomme aide de camp du General Commandant en CheJ des Forces 
americaines au debut de l' entree en guerre des hats-Unis, s'est dcpense sans compter, et par 
son activite inlassable, et ses qualites d'organisateur a grandement contribue d'abord d. la 
formation, puis au succes des Armies americaines. 

Petain. 

26 Janvier 1919. 

^I learn here that Ett has decided after all to go with General Wright, and the ist 
Corps, so he is no longer with the 77th Division, and it must be a great relief to him. 
His work will be much bigger and f'ar more interesting and congenial till he is ordered 
home. — Letter of January 9, from Chaumont. 



1 



434 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

91st headed by their divisional commanders and brigadiers, and the 
tapestries and mermaids and arms of the La Rochefoucaulds and 
Segurs and Chateaubriands and Montmorency s smiled down out of 
the past upon the new world come to help. The C. in C. met them 
all and made them a nice little speech. After lunch we motored 
10 or 15 miles where we found the wonderful 30th drawn up in re- 
view with the bands massed. The C. in C. inspected them every one, 
some 18,000, and passed every platoon and looked into every eye with 
his eye like a hawk for everything. This took an hour and f , al- 
though he hit a tremendous pace and made the A, D. C.'s and Generals 
"hump it" to keep up. Then came the presentations of medals of 
honor, D. S. C.'s and D. S. M's. and then the march past, and that 
great body of splendid men went by in four close columns in 35 
minutes and it certainly was a fine sight for these old dim eyes. 

General Reed and General Simonds were so cordial that I was 
tempted to wait over till to-day to see the same ceremony and re- 
view of the 27th and I am dining with the division commander to- 
night to meet the C. in C. and other ''plumes blanches.'' 

From Paris he adds three days later, his heart warmed with 
the good news that his daughter, whom he generally called 
"Sister", was coming to Paris. He rightly divined that her 
husband, George Whitney, was to be with Mr. Lamont, 
financial adviser to the American Peace Commission. His 
hope that Mrs. Bacon would ultimately get a passport and 
come was never more than a hope. However, the presence of 
the daughter was a great comfort: 

I have been here two days with both of my C. in C.'s and to- 
morrow they are going away again so I shall be oflF to Montreuil. 
The news to-day seems to indicate that I may have to stay on for at 
least three months, but I have set my mind toward May, and I don't 
think I can stand it any longer unless the fighting begins again. 

Your news that Sister is coming has put me all in a twitter, and 
Feb. 1st is only six days off. I am guessing that George is coming 
to be with Tom Lamont, but I know nothing. In case they have no 
place to live, I have taken a tiny little apartment for them for three 
months with the vague hope still that you may get your passport 
and come too. ... I hope she will want to go there. 

It is on^a little street, rue Chalgrin, just off the Avenue du Bois, 
near the Etoile, No. 20. There is nothing left in Paris. I do not 
expect to come back here for a long time, except perhaps to catch a 
glimpse of Sister. I shall probably be off to the Rhine again or at 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 435 

least to Spa. Elliot and I had a good visit here day before yesterday. 
He is managing a horse show for the ist Corps for early in February. 
Oh, how I long to get away from it and come home. I see Jamesie 
as often as I can, and of course, the Peace Conference and its progress 
and results are absorbingly interesting and everything is hanging in 
the balance. To-day the "League of Nations" made its appear- 
ance, and was decided en principe, but there is a long road to travel 
before the details are worked out. Would that E[lihu] R[oot] were 
here with his wisdom and power! 

Five days later, on January 30th, Colonel Bacon wrote from 
the north, where he was apparently lonelier than in Paris: 

It seems ages since I wrote you . . . from Paris it must have 
been, but days count for nothing, and places change so rapidly that 
I can't keep track of them. I thought Paris the loneliest place in the 
world, and now Montreuil is worse if anything. The fact is that I 
want to go home. I am restless and dissatisfied with what I am doing, 
which is nothing. Three nights in succession in Paris I dined alone, 
twice at the Petit Durand just around the corner in the Ave. Victor 
Hugo, and once at the Hotel du Quai d'Orsay. How is that for 
gayety! . . . 

Argentines, Brazilians, Spaniards, and Americans "du Nord" are 
swarming, and now the young Americans are beginning to have 
dances, which I hate, and which I consider very bad taste, and in- 
considerate. Nothing more than this sort of show will do so much 
to provoke criticism and discontent and bolshevism generally. 
The world is seething with danger. The dcgringolade of Germany, 
now that she has failed to dominate the world, and impose her 
damned vulgarity and all the rest of her "efficiency" and brutality, 
is bringing the whole social structure tumbling down about our 
heads. It is the great movement of "numbers" of the organized 
masses, which I used to say to you would give its name to this cen- 
tury, which was beginning, and the excesses of which will drag us 
through years and decades of misery and suffering. There is to be 
for me no rest or peace. Every man more than ever must unceasingly 
struggle and fight in his own small way to moderate and mitigate the 
evils of the times, to shape if he can the human tendencies and ap- 
titudes within his reach towards saner and better things. But fight 
and work he must . . . 

Who is to lead us? What does Root say? How does Bob feel 
about it now that he is out of the Army? We can't any of us even 
guess till Peace, whatever that is, is declared. Is there to be Peace'. 



436 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

I think not. There will be some sort of a settlement with Germany 
and a temporary cessation of hostilities but the malign influence and 
constant threat of boche poison is still to be fought all the rest of our 
lives, and the passions which they have let loose upon the world in 
their insatiable greed will continue to shake the world to its founda- 
tions and the people will rage together and imagine a vain thing. 
The future is black and uncertain but that is what makes it worth 
while, — makes it necessary for every man to gird on his armor and 
not to be dulled into a sense of false security. Wake up! America. 
You have saved your national soul, when it was tottering on the 
brink of damnation, but now your responsibilities, your honorable 
obhgations to the world and to yourself! You are just beginning! 
to understand {are you?) that duty is the great correlation of right. 
From this moment you will have to fight with the strong for your 
very existence. You cannot go on and get rich in ease and soft 
living. Take to heart the lessons of your great master and prophet, 
Theodore, and let it not be in vain that he has brought into your life 
the biggest, finest things that you have known for generations. 

What am I to do when I get home. . . ? How am I to take 
any useful part? My whole desire is to run away with you some- 
where, I yearn for peace and sunshine and calm and to be free of all 
the strife which is looming up ahead. You and your children's fu- 
ture, and your cunning grandchildren are all that I long to live for. 
Feb., March, April! Feb., March, April! Feb., March, April— are 
staring me in the face. 

From Montreuil he writes on February ist what was in the 
heart and on the lips of officers and men in France: 

It is Saturday afternoon and I have allowed my adjutant. Captain 
Bryant, to go away iox Jour days, away to Chaumont with a box 
of medals (about 200) which have been awarded by the British to 
men and officers and nurses of the A. E. F., and he was about as de- 
hghted to get away as I would have been, and now I ought not to go 
away till he comes back. There are about three places that look 
attractive to me in this part of the world, London, to meet Sister, 
who is about due on the Lapland; Cannes, to stay with Davy and 
get some sunshine; or the Rhine, to visit the Armies of Occupation. 
The one topic of conversation is when are you going home! When is 
G. H. Q. going to break up, and every one is unsettled and restless. 
Captain Plowden wants to know how much longer I want my horse. 
I don't know. Commandant Froissart wants to know how long I 
want his house, Brunehautpre. I don't know, maybe two months, 
maybe a year. 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 437 

Of the three things he said in his last letter he would most 
like to doj he did the first and most sensible. He went to 
London to meet his daughter. 

Feb. 7th, 1919. 
Brunehautpre. 

Where do you suppose I am . . . sick in bed! And this is 
the very first time that I have given in for a minute in all these years 
of war. I certainly had a rotten night last night with a good fever 
and little sleep, so I conjured up all the dreadful things I could think 
of and exaggerated them till I thought the morning would never come. 
But the temperature has gone now and I have had my lunch and am 
lazily lying in bed . . . 

I went over to London on Monday to meet Sister and I was glad 
to see her and hear of you. She arrived Tuesday afternoon, and, as 
all the restaurants were out of business because of the strike, she and 
George came to dine with Griscom at 41 Upper Grosvenor Street and 
I left early the next morning, which was day before yesterday. 

Yesterday I went to Boulogne to meet her on her way to Paris, and 
I hope to go myself to-morrow or next day, as I want to see Mrs. Roose- 
velt if possible. Everything will be made easy for her as the boys 
are both there, and the whole French nation would do anything in 
the world for her. You have no idea of the profound sense of loss 
throughout Europe for that man, and France worshipped him. 

If ever there was a lonely, doleful place for me now, it is Paris, and 
the feeling of not having a bed to sleep in, or a cat to speak to is too 
dreary. Every one is officially busy — Col. House and all the Peace 
Commission and their wives and clerks and detectives at the Crillon. 
. . . And many others at the Ritz, British by the hundreds at the 
Majestic and Astoria, Americans at the Meurice and swarming 
everywhere. 

The President will leave next week, and I think he has accomplished 
a great deal. I am very hopeful that the Peace Conference will be 
a great success and I confess that I believe it principally due to him, 
and the able way in which he has "put it over." Of course the 
world will be in a turmoil for years and we shall all have nothing 
but trouble but I believe that out of this concrete formula for the 
Society of Nations will come the greatest advance in International 
Law, which you know is my hobby, and history will give much credit 
to W. W. in spite of the difficulty which will immediately beset the 
League of Nations. 

These were Colonel Bacon's views as to the conception of 
the League of Nations. The text had not been definitely 



438 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

settled. It was reported and out of the Commission to a 
Plenary Session of the Conference on February 14th and Presi- 
dent Wilson started home the night of the 14th. The text was 
provisional; it was later modified in important particulars, 
and eventually formed the first part of the Treaty with Ger- 
many, signed in the City of Versailles on June 28, 1919. 

Colonel Bacon's views changed after reading and considering 
the text; his favourable and optimistic opinion, based upon 
hearsay of the contents of the Covenant, was modified. But 
his views at the time are interesting as showing the hopes with 
which the Conference opened and how ready the world was to 
acclaim something that offered a peaceful settlement of the 
nations' quarrels. 

Brunehautpre 
Feb. 8, '19. 

I'll tell you a secret ... if you'll promise not to tell. I am 
crazy about my bed! And am tempted to stay here permanendy, 
until they let me go home. The sun is streaming in my window, and 
it is real winter outside, snow everywhere and the spruces and beeches 
and chestnuts covered with glistening frost, and alive with circling 
rooks (crows I believe you call them) remind me of home and Jamaica 
Plain. As a matter of fact, I shall probably get up and go to my 
di-eary office, and start in my rather unimportant round of daily 

duties. . T u • 

I went down to dinner last night with my Captain. I hesitate 
to go to Paris to-morrow much as I want to, because the C. in C. 
has not returned from London, and I am not sure of finding my 
other C. in C. in Paris, which would be my only excuse for going 
otherwise. I might be thrown into prison, A. W. O. L., and you 
would not want me to end up in that way, would you. . . .! 

If it be given us to spend a few years as the Darby and Joan of 
our young imagination of 40 years ago, there will be nothing left to 
be hoped for or desired, God bless you! 

And what of the war! Is Germany winning out having got rid of 
the incubus and curse of Kaiserism, Are the teachings of Nietzsche 
and Treitschke substantially to prevail? And were the "intellec- 
tuals", the 90 boche professors right? One hears occasionally, and 
it is believed, though not spoken, that the boche is a superior race 
in many ways, after all— more worthy to survive than some of us 
who are thought to be effete, who still cling to, en principe, and try to 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 439 

cultivate, the teachings of Christ, and the "" ligne du beau' in life, art, 
beauty, sentiment, refinement, even at the expense of austere vul- 
garity and organized "efficiency." Beaten! the boche is not beaten 
because he has failed in the immediate domination of the world, 
for his brutal orgies, and has lost his Kaiser and his dream of that 
kind of Empire for ever. 

Reculer pour mieux sauter — and now that we are busily engaged in 
helping him to rebuild his shaken social and economical structure in 
order that he may renew his industrial activity and pay the big in- 
demnity, it will not take many years before his is the biggest single 
racial unit and homogeneous administrative entity in the Society 
of Nations. Seventy millions of common language and tradition and 
aspiration is a pretty strong, little solid democracy in the very centre 
of the world with the highest efficiency, even in breeding boches, 
and its natural and legitimate expansion will before many genera- 
tions burst any bonds which the world may seek to put about it in- 
dustrially and socially and if its superiority of fibre be true, the 
peaceful penetration of anti-bellum days will "carry on" more 
strongly than ever, and business "" uber alles" will dominate the world 
unless the Bolshevists get it all first. But the boche is an adaptable 
and able gentleman. He is taking it "lying down" now, because he 
is perfectly confident that he is going to put it over with his smile and 
his '' Kamerad" just as his machine gunners tried to do after they 
had killed hundreds of our men from concealed positions and came 
out smiling in utter surprise that any one should bear any resentment 
—ready to begin all over again just as they are now. That's the 
sort of stuflF that wins— the engrafting of the Jew on the old Hun 
stock — a great combination! I'm all for it myself, as I've always 
tried to make you believe — patient humility with supreme egoism 
fools a lot of people and gets there, doesn't it! 

Teach all this to your grandchildren . . . that is, if you believe 
in the superiority of the boche! If not, go on in your old, simple, 
homely, mistaken (!), wonderful way, living and teaching by your 
example and precept the fife of Christ, and making every one who 
comes within the radiance of your gentle goodness, love you, and 
admire and look up to you. 



Colonel Bacon's cold did not lift, and it would have been 
better had he remained in bed for some days longer, for the 
cold developed into pneumonia. He did not do so and he was 
put to bed in the American Hospital of Paris. From this quiet 
retreat he wrote to Mrs. Bacon on February 15th: 



440 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

You would be surprised to get a letter from me here, except that 
I cabled you I was coming to get rid of my cold, and here I am, being 
taken the best of care of by doctors and nurses, and being kept as 
warm as toast to keep this nasty European winter chill out . . . 

I can't stand it much longer, and I have made up my mind to ask 
to be sent home just as soon as Sir Douglas makes any change in 
G. H. Q., and I am beginning to allow myself to think of getting 
home by the ist of May!! When I get out of this hospital I am 
thinking of inviting myself to stay with Davy at Cannes tor a few 
days' leave. . . . 

It was better for me to take my cold away, and I think I was pretty 
wise in my old age to come out here where I have a cheerful room 
and bath all to myself "giving" on the garden and sunshine. My 
cough has entirely gone already in the two days that I have been 
here, and my temperature is nearly normal. It was never over ioo° 
or so. 

The next letter was written on February 24th, from Les 
Mimosas, Cannes. 

Nine days in the hospital . . . was enough to clear up my 
wheezy bronchial tubes, and get my temperature down to normal 
every day, so Doctor Turner, with the approval of my friend Colonel 
Beeuwkes, thought well of my accepting Harry Davison's kind in- 
vitation to come down here with him on Saturday, Washington's 
Birthday, after his triumphant launching of his big International Red 
Cross programme at a dinner in Paris, the account of which you have 
surely seen in all the papers, for he has a good press. It is a wonder- 
ful conception — the coordination of world effort for all humanitarian 
work — health, research, sanitation, and cleanliness of all kinds — 
combat, cure and prevention of disease, and epidemic, coming 
through the better knowledge and appreciation of the peoples of the 
earth for one another, in fact all sorts of useful international activities 
under the name of the Red Cross, which will become a great educator 
of public opinion. Root has had the vision for many years chiefly 
from the point of view of International Law, and you may remember 
that I have had some ideas on the subject myself. Well, Davy and 
his charming family are living here in a wonderful garden on the hillside 
among the palms and mimosas and sunshine overlooking the Mediter- 
ranean — a pretty good place for an old broken down war horse like 
me. If I can't get my courage back in a week or two, I ought to be 
ashamed of myself. . . . 

If I can only get away after a week or so down here, and a few 



AFTER THE ARMISTICE 441 

weeks more at G. H. Q. with Sir Douglas, I will fly home with Sister. 
She would like to go by the middle of April, and w<?, well, nothing 
will hold me but a sense of obligation to Sir Douglas. He will be 
amused when I tell him that you have seen him in a "film." That 
American boy chased him that day by the Canal, and wouldn't 
take no for an answer. Even while we were having our lunch from 
a basket on the ground, till the C. in C. was quite annoyed. I feel 
like a coward sneaking off to bed in a hospital, and then running 
away down here. It is a bad sign . . . and I am not proud of 
it. It was only the thought of you that made me do it, and /ear, 
just plain fear, I think. The two days that I had with McCoy and 
Boyd at rue de Chevreuse when Boyd died, were not cheerful. 

The little American Hospital was fine and deserves all the en- 
couragement it can get. Don't be in a hurry, however, to turn 
over your money. Your letter to donors was fine and above criticism, 
but you never can tell what some nasty cuss may try to do, and it is 
well to be prepared for anything. . . . 

I am not sure whether the American Hospital has the right to build 
on its land, but they have plans for an additional wing for about 200 
beds, which could be built with your money, if there is any way to 
get enough money to maintain it. 

I have reached no definite conclusion about it, but have not thought 
much about it till I found myself in the hospital and got your letter. 

We are all waiting breathlessly now for two things — the reception 
of W. W.'s League of Nations to-day in Boston, and the military 
peace which should be imposed without further delay upon the 
boche. It is essential that this be done immediately. The next 
few weeks are full of possibilities. 

Hotel Meurice [Paris], 

March 5th, '19. 

About two months more. . . . Perhaps I can break away 
then and I shall f?y as soon as ever my two C. in C.'s are through with 
me. I had a fine rest with the nice Davisons in Cannes and arrived 
back only to-day. I did nothing but sit on the veranda. The 
family were sweet to me and one reason that I love them is that they 
appreciate you. 

Harry is staying with me to-night at the rue Chalgrin and to- 
morrow, but then he will be off and I, too, up to my house in the 
north for a few more weary weeks. . . 

In a brief note of March 6th, he has a reference to affairs at 
home and to the League of Nations before it had assumed its 
final form. 



442 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

March 6th, 
20 rue Chalgrin. 

What a revolution in the Senate! What a state of con- 
vulsion all over the world! We must, of course, join a League of 
Nations. 

The last of the long series of letters from France was written 
from Paris on March 12, 191 9: 

These days are pretty sad for me, and to-day for the first time I 
spoke to the C. in C. about my going home as soon as my job "up 
there" can be ended, which I am just beginning to hope may be by 
the I St of May! If I could only count on it! . . . 

Davy went away last night to Cannes, for his International work, 
and to-night I am going away to the Rhine again for five or six days 
perhaps before I get back to Montreuil where it is all very slack, and 
Sir D. will be away too till next week. After that I shall just hold 
on till it is decent to leave, if only I can get permission and orders to 
go. If I should be given another job over here and have to stay on, 
I really don't think I could bear it. The next few weeks will decide 
it all, and the minute I can get any daylight you bet I will cable 
you. . . . 

I am thankful that the boys are out. 

The period of settling down and taking up life again will be very 
difficult and trying and will tax all their moral fibre, but it must be 
faced and we must all begin to build again for the future. . . . 



CHAPTER XX 

Home 

The war was over in the sense that fightnig had stopped and 
to the laymen unversed in military matters and administration 
the American Expeditionary Forces should take ship and return 
home at once and without delay. This, too, was the feeling of 
the men and it was certainly the desire of most officers. But 
where were the ships to transport this vast army of two million 
men and more? The tonnage of the world was drawn upon to 
get them to France; American vessels would not suffice and 
Colonel Bacon's cry of "Hurry, hurry, faster, faster, faster", 
was not his cry alone. It came from the heart of every man on 
the Western front, lest the Germans should win the race before 
the Americans entered the lists. But the month, day, or hour 
of going home was a matter of convenience, not of prime neces- 
sity, and the troops waited upon the transports, instead of the 
transports upon the troops. It would have been better, many 
thoughtful people believe, if the Allied and Associated Armies 
had not been withdrawn so rapidly from the front lines. Peace 
would have come earlier with their presence and the terms 
would have seemed more acceptable under the shadow of the 
great and conquering armies within striking distance of the 
Rhine. However this may be, the General Staffs had to remain 
after the units had disappeared and the thousand and one 
details arranged and righted. It would have been folly to send 
the experienced home, and leave the final and complicated 
settlement to virgin minds and untrained hands. Colonel 
Bacon's case was unique. He had been not only Head of the 
American Mission at British Headquarters and Liaison Officer 
between the Commanders-in-Chief of the English-speaking 
forces; he had been for months and still was on Marshal Haig's 
personal Staff. His presence was therefore highly desirable. 
Burning to go home, he could not ask to be relieved of his duties 

443 



444 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

so long as others might want him to stay. He could not ask 
of his own accord and for his own convenience. Yet he was 
to return sooner than he contemplated, and under circum- 
stances that left him no choice. 

Mrs. Bacon broke down. She had overdone, as Colonel 
Bacon feared. She had cared for and carried the American 
Ambulance on her shoulders since the beginning of the World 
War. The excitement of the war kept her on her feet, as it did 
Colonel Bacon. With the end of the war came the end of her 
strength and endurance. The tired nerves collapsed, and 
Mrs. Bacon was prostrated. Colonel Bacon did not hesitate. 
He laid matters before his two Chiefs, and he was at once re- 
lieved of duty with both. 

He had reverted to the rank of Major upon being relieved 
as Aide-de-Camp to General Pershing. He was not, however, 
overlooked by his Commanding Officer. He had been pro- 
moted Lieutenant-Colonel in the Quartermaster Corps in the 
last days of September. His ambition had always been to 
serve in the line, and on November 14, 191 8, he was, to his 
great delight, commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of Infantry, to 
date from September 16, 191 8. To be sure, the commission 
was temporary, "for the period of the emergency, subject to 
confirmation by the War Department." On December 19, 
1918, it was confirmed by the Secretary of W^ar. 

Colonel Bacon was ordered home.^ He left Paris on March 



1 GENERAL HEADQUARTERS, AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES 

France, March 22, 1919. 
Special Orders, 
No. 106. 

Extract 

81. Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Bacon, Infantry, is relieved from his present assign- 
ment, and from further duty with the American Expeditionary Forces, and will pro- 
ceed without delay to Base Section No. 5, reporting upon arrival to the Commanding 
General for return to the United States by first available transportation. Upon 
arrival in the United States he will report to the Adjutant General of the Army for 
further orders. 

The provisions of General Orders Nos. 127, 188 and 189, series 191 8, these head- 
quarters, and Section I, general Orders No. 28, c. s., will be complied with. 

Compliance with this order after arrival in the United States is subject to such de- 
lays as may be imposed by the authorities at the Port of Debarkation in accordance with 
orders from War Department relative to debarkation, disinfection, quarantine, and 
demobilization. 

The travel directed is necessary in the military service. 



HOME 445 

25th, an ill man. He was unable to leave his bed most of the 
time. Immediately upon reaching New York he proceeded to 
Washington and was demobilized on April 5, 1919.^ 

The sands of life were running fast. His certificates of dis- 
charge from the Army showed him to be a physical wreck. He 
was operated on for mastoiditis contracted in France, and he 
died from the operation. His noble life ended on May 29, 
1919; a victim of the war, "just as much," the British Chief 
of Staff said, "as if he had actually fallen on the field of 
battle."^ 

One who knew him long and well, indeed, from early man- 
hood, has said: 

This country is crying for such as he, for never in her existence has 
she been in a more neglected and chaotic condition than now, and 
more in need of an honourable man, of clear vision, noble impulses 
and true patriotism. 

He never had a selfish motive, and he served his country till the 
end and sacrificed his precious life for her. 

It would have gratified him to know that his name is on the Honour 
Roll at Harvard, among those who gave their lives in this war, and 
to see it inscribed in Memorial Hall, among the young men who died 
on the battlefield. . . . 

All men loved him; for he rang perfectly true and was a little finer 
than most men, and young and old came to him for encouragement 
and inspiration. He had a certain quality of heart and soul that is 
seldom met, his great understanding and sympathy for those who 



WAR DEPARTMENT 

Washington, April 5, 1919. 

Special Orders, 

No. 80-0. 

Extract 
78. By direction of the President, and under the provisions of Section 9, Act of 
Congress, May 18, 1917, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Bacon, Infantry, United States 
Army, is honorably discharged from the service of the United States for the conveni- 
ence of the Government to take effect this date his services being no longer required. 

Peyton C. March, 
By order of the Secretary of War: General, Chief of Staff. 

Official: 

P. C. Harris, 

The Adjutant General. 

^General Honourable Sir Herbert Alexander Lawrence in a letter to Mrs. Bacon, 
undated, written shortly after Mr. Bacon's death. 



446 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

deserved it, and the unselfishness and sense of honour that marked 
his life and which won confidence and affection wherever he 
went. 



A high-minded and spiritual man such as Bishop Brent could 
and did write of Mr. Bacon: 

I have just had the sad news. You have a whole army of men 
grieving with you. How deep your loss is we have some clear under- 
standing of because your husband was our friend. No truer servant 
of the country ever breathed. And what he did for the Allied cause 
I know perhaps as well as any one for it was my good fortune to be 
with him much. He had no thought for anything except the issue 
of the struggle for the right. His devotion to the French and the 
British and his understanding of both nations made him a bond of 
union between them and us of a character and a strength which it 
would be hard to overvalue. 

I happened to be with him during the darkest days when he was 
overborne with grief and pain. British leaders clung to him. He 
embodied the dauntless courage and intelligent sympathy of America, 
at times more than any other one person. He has given his life for 
the cause as truly as if a bullet had laid him low, for I saw and many 
others saw that he was exhausting his vitality in his unremitting serv- 
ice. Now he has joined those who have achieved — his chief, Roose- 
velt, and all those gallant comrades who fell at the front and whose 
fate he almost coveted. 

The last time I saw him he spent the night at my house in Chau- 
mont — the house which against my expostulations he insisted on re- 
taining for me and where for several months before I was com- 
missioned I was his guest. At that time he was longing to get home to 
you and talked much about you. His strength was always sub- 
ordinated to his extraordinary gentleness. I loved to be with him, 
noble, loyal-hearted knight that he was. 

There is nothing that can fill the gap that his going has made. But 
there is nothing that can undo or tarnish his great record. His life 
is «>mbedded in the life of the country and the world of men. He 
lives a hero with the heroes. 

I try to think of him as he is now in his new life beyond the grave. 
He is all that he was. His unflickering love moves out toward you 
and his children in its undimmed flame. Death can do nothing to 
weaken the knot of love that ties life to life. I am so thankful that 
you were all together when he went; and to have gone at this moment 






HOME 447 

is not unfitting. He had finished the biggest undertaking of his life 
and rest comes after labour.^ 

A foreign statesman, the late Viscount Bryce, brought into 
frequent, almost daily intercourse with Colonel Bacon during 
a period of years, felt justified in thus writing to Mrs. Bacon: 

Your husband was one of those among the statesmen of America 
whom I most respected and valued not only for his gifts and his 
services to good causes, but for the transparent sincerity, uprightness, 
and geniality of his character. To know him was to trust him and to 
love him. How often have I recalled the work we did together for 
furthering friendship and good relations between America and Eng- 
land, and how pleasant it was to deal with him. Such was the can- 
dour of his mind and the earnestness of his wish to settle everything 
in a way fair and just all round — the right temper in which a Secretary 
of State in any country should approach his tasks. We saw him 
several times here in the earlier years of the war, and [were] profoundly 
touched by his sympathy with England and the Allied cause, and 
I know how greatly his presence at Sir Douglas Haig's headquarters 
was valued and how attached everyone was to him there. 

The impression that Colonel Bacon, the man and his example, 
made upon a youth of twenty, is stated in an extract from the 
young man's letter to his own sister: 



It seems as if all our heroes were dying. Tom Stevenson walked 
in to breakfast this morning and told me that Mr. Bacon died yester- 
day. 

Whatever may be our views and faith, one thing is certain — that a 
real man like Mr. Bacon is immortal, and his cherished memory is, 
and ever will be, an inspiration to the many who knew his wonderful 
personality. . . . 

Another shining example of one who "has finished the work that 
was given him to do" has passed away. 

"Through such souls alone, God stooping, shows sufficient of his 
light for us in the dark to rise by." 

" I did love him very much, and trusted him and admired him 
and it made me think better of myself to feel that he loved me," 
Mr. Root once said of Colonel Bacon. And the Commander-in- 

^Letter to Mrs. Bacon dated May 30, igig. 



448 ROBERT BACON— LIFE AND LETTERS 

Chief of the American Army in France wrote him in an official 
letter, that he was "an example to all of us." 

Such was Robert Bacon, judged by his acts and his inner- 
most thoughts, his associates and friends and companions in 
arms. American through and through, and, in a very real 
sense a friend of England and France, he was withal supremely 
the friend of right, as it was given him to see the right. 

Amicus PlatOy amicus Socrates^ sed major Veritas. 

J. B. S. 

Washington, D. C, 
May 13, 1923. 

THE END 






INDEX 



Academy of International Law at The 

Hague, 194 
Adams, John Quincy, views advocated 

in conduct towards South America, 198 
Adee, Alvey A., letter to diplomatic 

agents, 129 
Aisne, first battle, Mr. Bacon assists 

wounded, xvii, 230-231; third battle, 

377 

Allen, Henry T., Major General, letter, 
207 

Algeciras Treaty, 112 note 

Alsace, celebrates return to France, 419- 
420 

Alvord, Benjamin, Brigadier General, 
295-296 note 

America, Mr. Bacon's devotion to, ix- 
xvi, 105, 272, 333; should protest vio- 
lation of its treaties, 207, 237-238, 242, 
245, 246; Allies fighting battles of, 216, 
224, 225, 241, 355; Mr. Bacon's faith in 
ideals of, 242, 246-247, 309-310; declar- 
ation of war against Germany, 276; 
entry brings hope to Allies, 277, 278, 
302; Mr. Lloyd George's message, 365 
note; Mr. Bacon believes nation should 
accept post-war responsibilities, 436 

American Ambulance Hospital, Mrs. 
Bacon chairman of American Com- 
mittee, xii, xviii, 203, 210 et seq., 285; 
Whitney Unit, 211; Sanitary Train, 
213-214, 321; Mr. Bacon buys lake 
steamer for transporting coal to, 214- 
215; difficulties at, 210, 220, 226, 283; 
Board appointed to settle status, 284; 
transferred to military authorities and 
control of Red Cross, 215, 285 et seq.; 
Mrs. Bacon continues labors, 215, 
286-287, 303, 311, 386-387, 399, 417, 

441. ^. ^ . 

American Ambulance Field Service, 212- 

213, 215, 224, 283, 311 
American Army, Mr. Bacon's confidence 

in, 317, 343, 351, 352, 365, 367, 375, 

377, 380, 384, 386, 388, 390, 392-393» 

396, 400, 402-403, 406-407, 411, 412, 

432; on the Rhine, 428 
American Federation of Labor, 256-257 
American Institute of International Law, 

194, 224, 226 



American Red Cross, 215 note; American 
Ambulance Hospital placed under con- 
trol, 251, 285 et seq.; Mrs. Sharp head 
of affiliated Women's committees, 288, 
440 

Amiens, 353, 3S4-3SS. 377. 392 

Ancestry, ix, 1-20 

Ancona, sinking of the, 219-220 

Andrew, Dr. A. Piatt, 213, 226; letter to, 
228 

Appleton, Daniel, 380 

Argentine Republic, address at celebra- 
tion of centennial anniversary, 155-157 

Argonne, see Meuse-.Argonne 

Arras, German attack repulsed, 368 

Asquith, Herbert H., 222; cable to, 277 

Association for International Concilia- 
tion, 194 

Astor, Viscountess, 218, 223, 421, 422, 
423 

Austria-Hungary, outbreak of war, 201; 
the Ancona, 219-220; armistice, 410 

Babcock, Conrad A., Lieutenant Colonel, 
succeeds Mr. Bacon at Chaumont, 324; 
letter of, 325 

Bacon, Alexander, 355 

Bacon, Elliot C, secretary to Governor 
General of Philippines, 185, 218; Cap- 
tain of Artillery, N. A., 289, 291, 30^, 
315, 350, 361, 362; overseas with regi- 
ment, 363 et seq., recommended for 
Majority, 398, 401-402, meets father in 
France, 398 et seq., offered appoint- 
ment on General Wright's Staff, 415. 

Bacon, Elliot C, Jr., 310, 355 

Bacon, Emily Low, 1^20 

Bacon, Caspar G., with troops on Mexi- 
can border, 224, Major of Artillery, N. 
A., 289, 291, 309, 315, 345, 350, 375, 

376, 397. 401, 4". 414. 417. 427 
Bacon, Caspar G., Jr., 310, 355 
Bacon, Hope Norman (Mrs. Elliot C), 

286, 289 note, 376, 382, 398 
Bacon, Julia, quoted, 6-7, 8-9, 16-17 
Bacon, Martha Beatrix, see Mrs. George 

Whitney. 
Bacon, Priscilla (Mrs. Caspar G.) 289 

note, 299, 345, 423 
Bacon, Robert, ancestry, ix, 1-20; birth. 



449 



Irl 



450 



INDEX 



ix, 25, 282 note; preparation for college, 
25; college life, 25-29; trip around the 
world, 30-63; marriage, 64-65; appear- 
ance, X, 19, 26, 28, 29, 232, 250, 326, 
359 note. Character, some outstand- 
ing qualities of, ix-xi, 26; consideration 
for others, 210, 226-228, 233, 251, 317 
note, 325-327, 340, 412 note; courage, 
xi, 203, 226 and note; idealism, ix, 14- 
15, 225, 241 et seq., 346, 367, 370, 393, 
416, 424, 435, 448; inspiration to as- 
sociates, 232-233, 252, 253, 325, 445, 
446, 447, 448; modesty, x, 226 note, 
239, 252, 316-317 note, 371; enters firm 
of Lee, Higginson & Company, 69; mem- 
ber of E. Rollins Morse & Brother, 70; 
of J. P. Morgan & Company, 70; partic- 
ipates in arranging loan to government, 
73 et seq.; in creation of Steel Cor- 
poration, 81 et seq.; conducts negotia- 
tions for purchase of Chicago, Burling- 
ton & Quincy R. R., 89 et seq.; frus- 
trates Mr. Harriman's efforts to control 
Northern Pacific, 91 et seq.; agent for 
Mr. Morgan in allaying Wall Street 
panic, 97; formation of Northern Se- 
curities Company, 97 et seq.; dissolu- 
tion, 99 et seq.; health impaired, 
withdraws from business, 102 

Assistant Secretary of State, 105; 
Acting Secretary, no; desires Mexico 
to cooperate with United States in ex- 
tending good offices to warring Central 
American Republics, in; policies ap- 
proved by President, 112; appointed 
member Peace Commission to Cuba, 
113 et seq.; disapproves intervention, 
118; interest in Pan America, 118-09; 
Dominican loan, 1 19-120; President's 
congratulations upon, 120; member of 
Commission to settle Porto Rican 
Church Property dispute, 121; con- 
ducts proceedings, 122-123; compro- 
mise approved by Vatican and Presi- 
dent, 123; Secretary of State, 125; urges 
ratification of Ship Canal Treaties, 
125; efforts to establish Permanent 
Court of International Justice, 126- 
128; delegate to Conference for Con- 
servation of Natural Resources, 128; 
plans world conference, 128-129; resig- 
nation, 130. 

Ambassador to France, 133; editorial 
in The Outlook, 133; relieves Paris flood 
sufferers, 134-136; entertains Mr. 
Roosevelt, 136 et seq.; assists Viscount 
Lee in planning Mr. Roosevelt's visit 
to London, 145-146; portrait painted 
by de Lazzl6, 146-147; Saint-Die cele- 



bration, 148-153; relations with col- 
leagues, 153 et seq.; resignation, 160 
et seq; reception of French Group, In- 
terparliamentary Union, 164-166; can- 
cels sailing on Titanic to assist suc- 
cessor, 166-167 

Fellow of Harvard University, ix, 
160 et seq., 358; Overseer, ix, 171-172; 
establishes University Press, 173; 
founds Chair in Medical School, 173; 
the '80 Gate, 173; Endowment Fund, 
174-175; reception to Delegates of 
Scientific Congress, 175-177; resigns 
Fellowship, 178; degree of LL.D., 358- 
360, 382, 388-389; name on Honor Roll, 

445 

Mission of good will to South Amer- 
ica, 182; strenuous days, 184 et seq; 
self-control, 191-192; endorses "Root 
Doctrine", 186-188; invites Govern- 
ments to participate in Hague Acad- 
emy, 194; proposes creation of National 
Societies of Conciliation, 194; of Na- 
tional Societies of International Law, 
194; impressions of South America, 192 
et seq.; Trustee of Carnegie Endow- 
ment for International Peace, 184 note, 
198; 

Urges preparedness, 201, 203; dis- 
approves policy of Administration, xiii, 
216, et seq.; sails for Europe to aid 
Allies, 203; assists Ambassador at Paris, 
206-208; conveys wounded to Base 
Hospitals, 210, 230-231, 243; work at 
American Ambulance Hospital, 203, 
210 et seq.; equips Sanitary Train, 213- 
214, 321; buys Lake Steamer for trans- 
porting coal toAmbulance, 2 1 4-2 1 5 ; serv- 
ices with Motor Ambulance Convoys, 
233;opening ofWhitney Unit, 217-218; 
engaged in international finance, 217- 
223; difficulties with American Ambu- 
lance Hospital, 222; believes Allies are 
fighting America's battles, 216, 224, 225, 
241, 355; Government should^ protest 
against violation of its treaties, 209, 
237-238, 242, 245, 246; visits Mexican 
border, 224-225; denounces policy to- 
wards, 265; doubts courage, 204, 225- 
226, awarded medal for heroism, 226 
note; distinction between official and 
spiritual neutrality, 242; refuses to 
criticize Administration while abroad, 
244; believes America will meet inter- 
national obligations, 242, 246-247, 309, 
310; enlists as Private at Plattsburg, 
xii, 247-249, Sergeant, 250-251; im- 
pression created, 248-252; at Fort 
Oglethorpe, 252; at Chickamauga Park, 



INDEX 



451 



252; desires service with British Forces 
during American neutrality, 217, 253- 
254; urges universal service, 257-258; 
announces candidacy for Senate week 
before time for filing name expires, 
258; resigns Presidency of National Se- 
curity League, 259; platform based on 
preparedness, 263, et seq.; supported 
by prominent men of New York, 262 
et seq.; repels German vote, 270; loses 
nomination by scant margin, 262, 269- 
270; New York Times editorial, 269-270; 
Baltimore Sunday News, 270; Congress- 
man Parker apologizes for part in de- 
feating, 303; regrets losing nomination, 
317, 373, 427; luncheon to Mr. Root 
and Mr. Roosevelt, 271; first and only 
allegiance to America, xv, 272; Mr. 
Wilson's criticism in Press, 272. 

Proud of America's entry into' war, 
276; cables Allied statesmen, 276-277; 
desires active duty overseas, 253; offer 
to raise regiment not accepted by War 
Department, 254; loans Machine guns 
to Government, 254; endeavors to en- 
list in Medical Corps, 279; in Quarter- 
masters Corps, 279; goes to Washington 
and secures commission — assigned to 
General Pershing's Staff, 279; sails for 
France 2 days later, 280; wishes Mrs. 
Bacon to come to France for war work, 
225, 280, 343, 416-417, 418; member of 
Board to settle status of American Am- 
bulance, 284, et seq.; realizes sacrifices 
to be made, 287, 299, 302, 310, 343, 346, 
365, 384, 403 ; member of Board to select 
site for American General Headquart- 
ers, 290; life at Chaumont, 290 et seq.; 
takes house for General Pershing, 291; 
made Post Commandant, 294-296; con- 
gratulated upon services by General 
Pershing, 292, 306 note; believes future 
of world rests on union of English- 
speaking people, xvi, 318, 323, 340, 
343, 365, 371, 400; upon cooperation 
or United States, England, and France, 
361, 368; installs Interallied Military 
Circle in quarters at Chaumont, 320 
et seq. 

Promoted to Colonel, made Chief of 
Mission, British General Headquarters, 
322 et seq.; financial assistance to 
['Hospital Elizabeth a Poperinghe, 326; 
life at Montreuil, 339 et seq.; beginning 
of German offensive on Western front, 
352 et seq.; proud of Anglo-Saxon heri- 
tage, 357, 370; relieved of detail, re- 
sumes rank of Major, 334 et seq.; de- 
tailed to Earl Haig's Staff, 334; awarded 



Distinguished Service Medal, 337-338; 
reappointed Chief of Mission, 393; 
automobile accident, 252-253 note, 395- 
396; meets son in France, 398 et seq.; 
made Lieutenant Colonel, 403; longs 
for end of war, 408 et seq.; notifies 
Director of Crillon of armistice, 412 
note; confers Distinguished Service 
Medals on Army Commanders and 
Chief of Staff, B. E. F., 422, 424, 426; 
plans to open villa at Spa for American 
and British officers, 423, 425; considers 
Mr. Roosevelt's death national cal- 
amity, 430; decorated by Government 
of France, 431 et seq.; believes social 
revolution imminent, 435-436; America 
should accept post-war responsibilities, 
436; hopes for success of Peace Confer- 
ence, 437-438; illness, 437, 438, 440, 
445; ordered home, 444; discharged 
from military service, 445; operation 
for mastoiditis, 445; death, 445 

Letters and cables of, to: Dr. An- 
drew, 228; Mr. Asquith, 277; Mrs. 
Bacon, 71-72, 203 et seq., 250-251, 
280 et seq.; William B. Bacon, 
30 et seq., 106 note; William B. 
Bacon, Jr., 20-21, 44; Robert Low 
Bacon, 14-15; M. Hanotaux, 276; 
Lord Lee, 254; Mr. Lloyd George, 
277; President Lowell, 177-178; Mr. 
Menken, 259; Ambassador Reid, 127- 
128; Mr. Scott, 221; State Depart- 
ment, 135, 164; Mr. Taft, 161; Dr. 
Walcott, 359 

Letters and Cables to, from: Mrs. 
Bacon, 280, 286, 351 note; William 
B. Bacon, 40; Viscount Bryce, 277; 
Colonel Buchan, 366 note; Mr. 
Cadwalader, 175 note; Colonel Cum- 
mins, 242 and note, 278; Lord Cun- 
liffe, 229; Mr. Elliot, 27; Marguerite 
Gilly, 327; Ambassador Herrick, 167; 
Major Higginson, 71; Dr. Hill, 267; 
Major General Ireland, 282; Ambas- 
sador Jusserand, 136, 250; President 
Lowell, 177; Mr. Millet, 163; Mr. 
Norton, 163; General Pershing, 334- 
33S> 372; Mr. Roosevelt, 112 and 
note, 120, 136 et seq., 163, 254; Mr. 
Root, 130, 182 et seq., 267; General 
Simonds, 338; State Department, 
162, 164; Mr. Taft, 160, 161-162; 
Major Van Nest, 254-255 note; Mr. 
Whitney, 290 note; Lieutenant Col- 
onel Wolf, 255; Wounded soldiers at 
Ambulance 11-16 La Grange aux 
Bois, 228 
Addresses: Saint-Die, 150; centcn- 



452 



INDEX 



nlal of Argentinean independence, 
155-157; Washington's birthday, 157 
et seq., reception of French Group, 
Interparliamentary Union, 165-166; 
reception to delegates of Scientific 
Congress, 176-177; Rio de Janeiro, 
189-190; Convention of National Se- 
curity League, St. Louis, 244-247 

Statements in the Press: New York 
Evening Post, December 13, 1913, 
192 et seq.; New York Times, August 
12, 1915, 239-240; October 3, 1915, 
240 et seq.; New York Sun, Novem- 
ber 5, 1915, 243; New York Times, 
December 19, 191 5, 244; July 29, 
1916, 258; platform, Albany Knicker- 
bocker Press, September 11, 1916, 
263, (printed in part in New York 
Sun, August 23, 1916, 263) 
Bacon, Mrs. Robert (Martha Waldron 
Cowdin), ancestry, 64-65; marriage, 64; 
joins Mr. Bacon in Cuba, 116, 118; pre- 
sented medal by French group. Inter- 
parliamentary Union, 165; accompanies 
Mr. Bacon to South America, 185, 191- 
192; chairman, American Committee, 
American Ambulance Hospital, xii, 203, 
211 et seq., 285; requested by Mr. Ba- 
con to come to France for war work, 
225, 280, 343, 416-417, 418; continues 
work in cooperation with Red Cross, 
215, 286-287, 386-388, 399, 417. 441; 
decorated by French Government, 307, 
329, 431, 432; heads Women's Division 
of Preparedness parade in New York, 
367; request for passport refused by 
War Department, 418, 423; illness, 444 
Letters of: concerning Ambassador 
Isvolsky, 154; to Mr. Bacon, 280, 286, 
351 note 

Letters to, from: Mr. Bacon, 71-72; 
during American neutrality, 203 et 
seq.; while at Plattsburg, 250-251; on 
duty in France, 280 et seq.; Bishop 
Brent, 446-447; Lord Bryce, 108, 447; 
Mr. Clarkson, 253; Colonel Cummins, 
229 note; Lieutenant Colonel Johnston, 
252; General t Lawrence, 333; Bishop 
Lawrence, 175, 359 note; President 
Lowell, 172, 280-281; Brigadier General 
McCoy, 290; Mr. Menken, 257 note; 
Ambassador Morgan, 181; Major Gen- 
eral Leonard Wood, 249 
Bacon, Robert Low, at school, letters of 
father to, 14-15, 224; Lieutenant, 
Plattsburg Training Camp, 251; on 
Mexican border, 257; Major of Artil- 
lery, National Army, 288, 289 note; 
elected member of House of Represen- 



tatives, 289 note; 294, 309, 342, 345, 

346, 350, 374, 411, 414, 435 ^ , 
Bacon, Virginia Murray (Mrs. Robert 

Low), 289 note; 299, 346, 347, 397 
Bacon, William B., 13, 17-19, 25, letters 

to, 30 et seq., 106 note 
Bacon, William B., Jr., letters to, 20-21, 

44-45 
Bacon, William B. (grandson), 309, 310, 

3i5> 355. 385 

Baden, Pnnce Max of, 404 note 

Baker, George F., 99 

Baker, Newton D., see War Department 

Balfour, Earl of, 411 

Barbosa, Ruy, 190 

Barnes, William, 260 et seq. 

Barnstable, settlement of, i ; customs, 2-3 

Barnstable, The, purchased to convey 
coal to American Ambulance Hospital, 
214-215 

Barrett, John, 182 

Barry, Thomas H., Major General, letter 
of Ambassador Page to, 326 

Bazin, Rene, 139 

Belgium, invaded, 202; Mr. Bacon de- 
clares America shouldi.orotest, 237; ac- 
compq General LiS to, 316 note 

Bell, Jam -anh'L,' Major General, 327 

Belleau W> ■ -4-385 

Belmont, . _ ist, 75 

Belmont, li-rs. August, 345 

BernstorfF, Count von, the Zimmermann 

[ note, 275; informs Mr. Wilson Germany 
will begin unrestricted submarine war- 
fare next day, 275; handed passports, 

275 
Biddle, John, Major General, 383, 386, 

421, 423, 424 
Biography contemplated, 308-309, 349 
Birdwood, Sir William, 424 
Birth, ix, 25, 282 note 
Bliss, Tasker, H., Major General, 279; 

316-317 note; 358 note; 368 note; 394 
Bolivar, Simon, 158 
Bowditch, Peter, 291, 406, 433 
Bouresches, 384 
Breckenridge, Henry, 207 
Brent, Charles Henry, Rt. Rev., 318, 327, 

339. 350. 357. 361. 362, 384. 385, 41S. 

429; letter to Mrs. Bacon, 446-447 
Brewer, Dr. George, 348 
Brewster, Andre W., Major General, 281 
Briand, Aristide, 165 
Brugere, Henri Joseph, General, 142 
Bryan, William J., cables Ambassador 

Page friendly portest to Great Britain, 

216 and note; Mr. Bacon disapproves 

protest, 216-217, 223 
Bryce, Viscount, 108, 220, 221, 277; con- 



INDEX 



453 



siders estrangement of Mr. Roosevelt 

and Mr. Root national calamity, 271; 

Letter to Mr. Bacon, 277; to Mrs. 

Bacon, 108, 447 
Buchan, F. E. Colonel, letter of, 366 
BuUard, Robert L., Major General, 432 
Byng, Baron, 424 

Cadwalader, John L., letter of, 175 note 

Cairns, F. S., 114 

Calder, William M., Mr. Bacon's op- 
ponent in Senate campaign, 258 et seq. 

Cambrai, 314 

Camoens, Luis vaz de, 189 

Camp, Walter, 29 

Canadian Troops, General Curry's charge 
to, 364 note 

Cantigny, 384-385 

Carlisle, John G., 73 et seq. 

Carnegie, Andrew, desires to devote life 
to philanthropy, 80, 83; sells holdings in 
Steel Company, 81 et seq.; creates Car- 
negie Endowment for International 
Peace, 182 

Carnegie Endowment for International 
Peace, creatior" of, 182; Mr.. Bacon goes 
to South Am .^ra under )ices of, 

182 et seq.;ele'' '"'uste 1840016, 
198 

Carriere, Eugent, . _, 

de Castelnau, Edouard, Gv.aeral, 290, 
297, 370 note 

Cawnpore, massacre at, 51 note 

Central American Republics, peace of the 
Marblehead, iio-iii et seq. 

de Chambrun, Colonel, 286, 290; dinner 
celebrating decoration of regiment, 330 

Chanler, Winty, 281, 291 

Charteris, John, Brigadier General, 234 

Chateau Thierry, 384-385 

Chaumont, selected for American Gen- 
eral Headquarters, 290; Mr. Bacon 
Post Commandant, 294; duties, 294- 
296; life at, 290 et seq., 329-330; 
Christmas celebration for the children 
of, 318, 319 

Chemin-des-Dames, xviii, 308 

Choate, Joseph H., 257, 262; letter of, 
266-267 

Cierges, 392 

Clartie, Jules, 205 

Clarke, Sir Travers, 421 

Clarkson, Edward, account of Mr. Bacon 
at Training Camp, 253 

Clemenceau, Georges, 354, 420, 426 

Cleveland, Grover, 73 et seq., 87 note 

Clough, William P., 99 

Cochran, Alexander, 213-214, 339 

College days, 25-27 



Collins, James L., Captain, 281 

Colombia, the Ship Canal Agreement, 
123 et seq.; treaty for settlement of 
differences with United States, 126 

Conference for Conservation of Natural 
Resources, 128-130 

Conner, Fox, Brigadier General, 299, 308 

Cortes, Enrique, 126 

Coubertin, Baron Pierre de, 139 

Coudert, Frederic R., 389 

Coulommiers, fighting in vicinity of, 207; 
Mr. Bacon aids wounded, 230 

Cowdin, Elliot C, 64 

Cowdin, Robert 65 

Cresson, W. Penn, account of Mr. 
Bacon in Flanders, 316-317 note 

Croix de Guerre, Mr. Bacon awarded, 
432-433 

Cuba, revolt agamst Government, 113; 
Peace Commission sent to, 11 3-1 14; 
failure of conferences, intervention, 
116-117 

Cummins, S. Lyle, Colonel, account of 
Mr. Bacon's activities abroad during 
neutrality, 229-235; letter of, concerning 
Mr. Bacon's appeal for loan to Allies, 
242-243, concerning America's entry 
into war, 278, 294, 327, 340; letter to 
Mrs. Bacon, 229-230 note 

Cunliffe, Lord, 219, 221, 223; letter of, 
229 

Currie, Sir Arthur, charge to troops en- 
tering battle, 364 note; Distinguished 
Service Medal awarded, 426 

Curtis, James F., 75 

Curzon of Kedleston, Marquess, 218 

Gushing, Dr. Harvey, 212, 329, 348 

Davis, John W., 422 

Davison, Henry P., 215, 216, 217, 218, 
223, 286, 288, 309, 407, 408, 426, 431, 
436, 440, 441. 442 „ . ,. ^ 

Dawes, Charles Gates, Brigadier General, 
414, 421 

Death, 445 

Declaration of London, 127 

Derby, Dr. Richard, 330, 387, 430 

Deschanel, Paul, 139 

Diplomacy, substitutes frank and open 
for old methods of, xi, 447 

Distinguished Service Cross, conferred 
upon Captain Davies, 389 

Distinguished Service Medal, Mr. Bacon 
awarded, 337-338; conferred upon 
Army Commanders and Chief of Staff, 
British Expeditionary Forces, 422, 424, 
426; upon Divisions of Second Corps, 
American Expeditionary Forces, 432- 
434 



454 



INDEX 



Dodge, Cleveland H., 398, 407 
Dominican Republic, loan to, 1 19-120 

Education, 25-27 
Elliot, Howard, letter of, 27 
England, see Great Britain 
d'Estournelles de Constant, Baron Paul, 

140, 165 
Eustis, William, 281, 291 

Festubert, Mr. Bacon's emotion upon 
seeing young Highlanders going into 
battle of, 233 

Field, Cyrus W., 39, 53 

Finney, Dr. John Miller, 299 

Flood of Paris, 134^136 

Foch, Ferdinand, Field Marshal, given 
command of Allied Armies, 353-355, 
358 note, 386, 396, 419, 420 

Forbes, W. Cameron, 185 

France, Mr. Bacon appointed Ambas- 
sador, 133; Paris Flood, 134-135; re- 
ception accorded Mr. Roosevelt, 136 
et seq.; distinguished citizens of, 139 
et seq.; Saint Die celebrations, 148- 
153; treaty of 1778, 151 note; Mr. 
Bacon's love for, xi, xiii, 150, 166, 
178-179, 207, 217, 220, 270, 298, 349, 
446; affection of French people for 
Mr. Bacon, 136, 165-166, 315, 330, 383; 
Germany declares war against, 202; 
America's entry into war brings hope 
to, 278, 284, 298; Mr. Bacon believes 
future depends upon the three Allies, 
361, 368; courageous spirit of people of, 
228 note, 242, 276, 349; gallantry of 
army, 302, 355, 364, 368, 375, 396, 400; 
Mrs. Bacon decorated by Government 
of, 307, 431, 432; Mr. Bacon decorated, 
431 et seq. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 151, 179, 186 note, 

346 
Frewen, Moreton, 425 
Froissart, Major, 339, 341, 362, 436 

de Gama, Domicio, 181 note, 189 

Gardiner, Augustus P., 257 

Garrett, John W., 191 

Gary, Elbert H., 81 et seq., 204 

Gas, poisonous, 234 

Germany, declares war against Russia, 
202; against France, 202; violates neu- 
trality of Luxembourg and Belgium, 
202; Great Britain declares war against 
202; intrigues to create dissension 
among Allies, xiii; spoliation of muni- 
tion factories in United States by 
agents of, 207, 208; attempts to per- 



suade soldiers that British initiated use 
of poisonous gas, 234; Mr. Bacon de- 
clares future of world menaced by 
dominating Prussianism, xi-xii, 241, 
368, 375, 428, 435; the Zimmermann 
note, 275-276; America declares war 
against, 276; claims America too late 
to save Allies, 366; Mr. Bacon believes 
world save from domination of, 400, 
401; armistice requested, 404, 408, 409- 
410, 419; Mr. Bacon feels peace must 
be imposed, 424, 428, 441; should be 
ostracised from Society of Nations, 
427; Allied forces on the Rhine, 428- 
429; Mr. Bacon believes defeat has not 
crushed aspirations, 439 
Gilly, Marguerite, letter of, 327 
Glenn, Edwin Forbes, Major General, 347 
de la Gorce, Pierre, 140 
Gorgas, William Crawford, Surgeon Gen- 
eral, U. S. A. 279 
Gray, Morris, 57, 59, 60 
Great Britain, declares war on Germany, 
202; Mr. Bacon's admiration for, xv, 
177-178, 217, 220, 240, 343, 446; dis- 
approves Mr. Wilson's friendly protest 
to, 216-217; Mr. Bacon desires to serve 
with forces of, during American neu- 
trality, 217, 253-254; importance of 
union of United States with, xvi, 318, 
323, 340, 343, 365, 371, 400; of union 
of the three Allies, 361, 368; gallantry 
of armies, 207, 302, 347, 352, 355, 364, 
365-366, 368, 371, 375, 393, 394. 396, 
400; message to America, 356 note 
Grenfell, Edward C, 215, 216, 224; letter 

of, 332, 422 
Grenfell, Mrs. Edward C, 421 
Gray of Fallodon, Viscount, xviii, 127, 

218, 222, 224 
Griscom, Lloyd, 383, 386, 421, 422, 423 
Gros, Dr. E. L., 233 
Gwynn, Bishop, 327 

Hague Academy of International Law, 
194 

Haig, Earl, account of Mr. Bacon at 
British General Headquarters, xv-xvi; 
requests Mr. Bacon be attached to 
personal Staff, 335-337; extract from 
despatch of, 337; attends conference to 
arrange for Supreme Allied Comman- 
der, 354, 380, 383, 388, 414, 417, 418, 
419, 421, 425, 427, 440, 441, 442; Mr. 
Bacon's admiration for, 372, 385, 386, 

391. 393' 396. 413 

Hamel, 384-385 

Hanotaux, Gabriel, sketch of Mr. Ba- 
con's services, xvii-xix; cable to, upon 



INDEX 



455 



America's entry into war, xvii, 276, 
139. 297, 394 

Harbord, James G., Major General, 281, 
368 note, 419, 421, 423, 433 

Harts, W. W. Brigadier General, 334, 
335. 336, 379. 393 

Harvard University, Mr. Bacon attends, 
25-29, 69; boat race (1906), x, 107, 398; 
de Lazzlo's portrait of Mr. Bacon in, 
146-147; Overseer of, ix, 171-172; Fel- 
low, ix, 160 et seq., 358; administration 
of, ix, 171 et seq.; University Press, 
173; Chair in Medical School estab- 
lished, 173; erection of '80 Gate, 173; 
Endowment fund, 174-175; reception 
to delegates of Scientific Congress, 
I7S"I77; votes to confer degree of 
LL.D upon Mr. Bacon, 358-360, 382, 
388-389; his name on Honor Roll, 445 

Harvard University Surgical Unit, 212, 
219 

Harriman, E. H., attempts to control 
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. R., 
87, 88-89; 3sks for third interest in, 91; 
attempts to control Northern Pacific, 
90 et seq.; takes stock in Northern 
Securities Company, 96-97; secures in- 
junction restraining Company from 
distributing stock as proposed, 100 

Harvey, George, 219, 309 

Hatfield House, 218 

Hay, John, 105 

Hedges, Job E., 260 et seq., 303, 309, 427 

Henry, Colonel, 362 

Hereford, William R., account of Mr. 
Bacon's South American trip, 188 et 
seq., 308, 349 

Herrick, Myron T., xix, 163; letter of, 
167, 206, 207, 208 

Higginson, Henry Lee, 69, 70, 71, 359, 
389 

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 19 

Hill, David Jayne, supports Mr. Bacon's 
candidacy for Senate, 262, 267; letter 
of, 267-268 

Hill, James J., confidence in Mr. Bacon, 
86; early activities, 86-87; Mr. Cleve- 
land's opinion of, 87, note; cooperates 
with Mr. Morgan, 87; purchases Chi- 
cago, Burlington & Quincy R. R., 87 
et seq.; refuses Mr. Harriman an in- 
terest in, 91 ; frustrates efforts to control 
Northern Pacific, 91 et seq.; formation 
of Northern Securities Company, 96 
et seq. 

Hooper, William, 28, 41, 388 

Home, Baron, 424 

Hospital Elizabeth a Poperinghe, finan- 
cial assistance to, 326 



House, Edward M., 302, 408, 411, 437 
Hughes, Charles Evans, 263, 266 
Humane Society of Massachusetts, 226 

note 
Hutchinson, Dr. James P., 288 

Interallied Military Circle, 320 et seq. 

International finance, Mr. Bacon en- 
gaged in during American neutrality, 
217-223 

Ireland, Merritte W., Surgeon General, 
U. S. A., 282, 284, 385; letter of, 282 

Isvolsky, Alexander P., 154-155 

Jackson, Dr. Henry, 25-27, 173 
Japan, Mr. Bacon's early impressions of, 

34 et seq.; Zimmermann note, 275 
Jeanne d'Arc, inspiration of French 

troops, 284; battle cry, 284 note 
Johnston, Gordon, Lieutenant Colonel, 

describes Mr. Bacon at Training 

Camps, 252-253; in France, 252-253 

note, 395 
Jusserand, J. J., 136; arrangements for 

Mr. Roosevelt's entertainment in 

Paris, 136 et seq.; letter to Mr. Bacon 

at Plattsburg, 250 

Kennan, George, letter, 95 note 

Kennedy, John S., 99 

Keogh, Sir Alfred, 217 

Keppel, Frederic D., 279 

Klotz, Louis L., 207 

Knox, Philander C, 128, 164 

Kiihlmann, Richard von, 400 

Lafayette, 241, 283, 419 

Lambert, Dr. Alexander, 286, 329 

Lamont, Daniel, 76, 99 

Lamont, Thomas W., 313, 215, 334 

Languages, desire to learn, 47, 62; plans 
for children to study French, 70; gifts 
for spoken mastery of Spanish, 181- 
182, 186, 191; teaches French to 
members of General Pershing's Staff, 
281, 283, 291, 297-298, 305, 308; urges 
sons to study French, 316; specially 
fitted for work with Allies by knowledge 
of, xiii, 332 

Lansing. Robert, 275, 404-405 note, 416 

Lawrence, Sir Henry, 51 note, 333, 367 

Lawrence, Sir Herbert A., 51 note, 332, 
333, 414, 422, 424 

Lawrence, Sir Walter, 31G, 352 

Lawrence, William, Rt. Rev., 174-175, 
223 . 357-358, 359; letter to Mrs. Bacon, 
359 note 

Lazzlo de Lombos, Sir Philip A., paints 
portraits of Mr. Bacon and Mr. Roose- 
velt, description of sittings, 146-147 



456 



INDEX 



League of Nations, 424, 435, 437-438, 

441, 442 , , , . 

Le Cateau, second battle of, 405 
Lee of Fareham, Viscount, 145-146, 217, 

220, 221; cable to, 254 
Legion of Honor, Mrs. Bacon Chevalier 

of, 431, 432; Mr. Bacon refuses Grande 

Croix, 431; made Officer, 431 et seq. 
Lepine, Louis Jean, 207 
Liggett, Hunter, Major General, 432 
Lines, Howard, death of, 226 
Loan to Government (1895), 73-79 
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 246, 424 
Logan, James A., Jr., Lieutenant Colonel, 

206, 399, 428, 432-433 
Lloyd George, David, 221; cable to, 277; 

attends meeting to arrange for Supreme 

Allied Commander, 354; message to 

America, 356 note, 411, 426 
London Naval Conference, 126-127 
Lorraine, celebrates return to France, 

419-420, 430 
Lothrop, Reverend John, 3 
Loubet, Emile Francois, 165 
Low, Edward, 38-39 
Low, Frank, 34, 36, 38 
Lowell, A. Lawrence, 161, 172, 175-176; 

cables, 177-178, 280-281, 359, 382, 389 
Lucknow, siege of, 51 note, 52, 367 
Lusitania, 2? 2, 276 
Luxemburg, 202 
Lys, battle of, 377 

McCoy, Frank Ross, Brigadier General, 
114; letter of, 251, 290; Mr. Bacon's af- 
fection for, 308, 310, 316, 421; morning 
rides with, 31 1-3 12, 324; celebrations 
at Chaumont, 330, 342, 372, 389; gal- 
lantry of Division, 390, 392, 395, 406; 
415, 416, 420, 421, 432, 433, 441 

Magoon, Charles E., 117-118 

Malcolm, Sir Ian, 423 

Marblehead, Peace of the, iio-iil 

Marne, first battle of, xvii, 209, 243-244, 
297 note; second battle, 396 

Marriage, early views on, 50, 57, 64-65, 
anniversaries of, 292, 297, 300, 304, 
405, 406 

Mather, Increase, 4 

Mayo, Reverend John, 3-4 

Menken, S. Stanwood, account of Mr. 
Bacon's activities through National 
Security League, 256-257; letter of, 
257 note; 259 

Metz, celebrates return to France, 419- 
420, 430 

Meuse-Argonne, battle of the, 403 et seq. 

Mexico, cooperated in extending good 
offices to Central America, ill; Mr. 



Bacon denounces policy of Adminis- 
tration towards, 265; Zimmermann 
note, 275 

Meyer, Dr. Balthasar H., loo-ioi 

Michel, Andre Paul, 139 

Military Training Camps, see Training 
Camps 

Millet, Francis, letter, 163 

Mills, Ogden, 283 note 

Milner, Viscount, 354, 411 

Mitchel, John Purroy, 248, 299 

Modesty, x, 226, 239, 252, 316-317 note, 

371 
Monash, Sir John, 402-403 note 
Montdidier, German attack repulsed, 

Montreuil, British Headquarters at, xv, 
331 et seq. 

Morgan, Edwin V., 114; Ambassador to 
Brazil, letter of, 181, 190 

Morgan, J. P. & Company, see J. P. Mor- 
gan 

Morgan, J. P., affection for Mr. Bacon, 
70, 72; Government loan, 73 et seq.; 
formation of Steel Corporation, 81 et 
seq.; reorganizes Northern Pacific R. 
R., 87; cooperation with James J. Hill, 
87; purchase of Chicago, Burlington 
& Quincy R. R., 87 et seq.; Mr. Cleve- 
land's opinion of, 78 note; Northern 
Securities Company, 96 et seq. 

Morrow, Dwight Whitney, 309, 389, 399 

Motley, John Lothrop, 3 

Motor Ambulance Convoys, 233 

Mott, T. Bentley, Colonel, 419, 420, 432 

Miiller, Lauro, 189-190 

Murphey, Dr. Fred Towsley, 396 

Murphy, Grayson, 285, 288 

Music, love of, 19, 26, "Glengarry" for 
Mr. Roosevelt, 141-142 note, 154, 181, 
330 

Nabuco, Joaquim, 189 

National Security League, address at St. 
Louis Convention, 244-247; activities 
through, 256-257; resigns Presidency 
of, 259 

Nelson, Lord, signal of before battle of 
Trafalgar, 365 note 

Neutrality, xii, 177, 209, 236-238, 242, 
258, 270 

Nolan, Dennis E., Brigadier General, 
281, 368 note, 406 

Norman, Guy, death of, 382 

North Atlantic Coast Fisheries Arbitra- 
tion, 106 note, 107-108 

Northcliffe, Viscount, 299 

Northern Securities Company, 86-102 

Norton, Charles D., letter, 163 



INDEX 



457 



CyDonnell, Thomas Joseph, Major Gen- 
eral, 220, 230, 231, 340 
Olney, Richard, 73 
Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 138 

Page, Walter Hines, 216, 224; letter to 
Major General Barry, 326, 399 note 

Palma, Tomas Estrada, see Cuba 

Panama, Ship Canal Agreement, 123 et 
seq. 

Pan American Conferences, 195 

Pan Americanism, efforts to strengthen 
bonds of, 155 et seq., 181 et seq.; Mr. 
Root's services in behalf of, 186, et seq. 

Paris, flood of, 134-136; after armistice, 
413,416,418,431,435,437 

Peace, 302; exchange of notes with Ger- 
many, 404-405 note, 408; must be 
imposed, 424, 428, 441 

Peace Conference, 416, 417; Mr. Bacon 
regrets Mr. Root not member, 419, 
424, 425, 435, 437 

Peed, R. P., Major, 288, 399 

Peiia, Roque Saenz, 195-196 

Penn, William, Some Fruits of Solitude 
quoted, 65, 174, 236 

Pepper, George Wharton, 248; describes 
Mr. Bacon at Plattsburg, 249-252 

Peralta, Manuel de, 160 

Perkins, Charles E., 89 

Perkins, James H., 285, 288, 329 

Perkins, Thomas N. 359 

Permanent Court of Arbitral Justice, 126- 
128 

Permanent Court of International Jus- 
tice, 126-128 

Perry, Dr. William, letter of, 13 

Pershing, John J., General, Mr. Bacon 
member of Staff, 279, 281, 283; es- 
tablishes Headquarters at Chaumont, 
290, 291; congratulates Mr. Bacon on 
work at, 292; birthday celebration, 
292; made General, 305; Mr. Bacon 
Aide-de-Camp to, xiii, 322; Mr. Bacon's 
admiration for, 299, 317, 323, 385, 406; 
his opinion of Mr. Bacon, 406; cor- 
respondence with Earl Haig concerning 
Mr. Bacon's detail, 334-338; places 
troops under General Foch's command, 
35S> 358 note, 360, 368 note, 370; re- 
quests every member of A. E. F. to 
write letter on "Mother's Day", 373, 
380 note, 387, 388; decorated by King 
George, 413 ; confers Distinguished Serv- 
ice Medal upon Earl Haig, 413; upon 
divisions of Second Corps, 432-434; cele- 
bration at Metz and Strassburg, 420, 432 

Petain, Marechal, 290, 354, 370 note, 419, 
420; Mr. Bacon decorated by, 432 



Phillips, William, 280 

Pichon, Stephen, 411 

Piatt Amendment, origin of, 133 note 

Plattsburg, see Training Camps 

Plumer, Sir Herbert, 424 

Poincare, Raymond, reception of Inter- 
parliamentary Union, 164, 166; cele- 
brations at Metz and Strassburg, 420 

Porter, Horace, General, 133 

Porto Rico, settlement of Church Prop- 
erty controversy, 121-123 

Post, Regis H., 1 21-122 

Preparedness, urges, xii, 201, 203, 239, 
243 et seq.; enlists at Training Camps, 
247 et seq.; statements to the Press, 
239 et seq.; letter from Major Van Nest 
concerning, 254-255 note; runs for 
Senate on preparedness platform, 263 
et seq.; luncheon to Mr. Roosevelt and 
Mr. Root in interest of, 271, 347 

Pritchett, Dr. Henry S., 95 

Pyle, Joseph G., 93 note 

Quekemeyer, John G., Major 331, 340, 
344, 347, 348, 351, 363, 406, 414, 
433 

Quesada, Seiior, 113 

Rawlinson, Baron, 426 

Read, Major General, letters from British 
leaders concerning gallantry of Second 
Corps, 402-403 note 

Reading, Earl of, conveys Mr. Lloyd 
George's message to America, 256-257 
note; degree of LL.D conferred by 
Harvard, 388, 411 

Reid, Whitelaw, cable to, 127-128 

Reid, Mrs. Whitelaw, 315 

Reyes, Rafael, General, 126 

Rhea, JamesI Cooper, Colonel, 406, 428 

Roberts, Lord, xii, 234 

Robinson, Geoffrey, 218, 223 

Rodin, Auguste, 165 

Roman Catholic Church in Porto Rico, 
property purchased by United States, 
121-123 

Roosevelt, Archibald, 330,367,387 

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 432 

Roosevelt, Kermit, 139, 387 note, 428, 
429, 430 

Roosevelt, Quentin, 387 

Roosevelt, Theodore, Harvard Class '80, 
25; boxing bouts with Mr. Bacon, 
28-29; relations with Secretary and 
Assistant Secretary of State, no, 112, 
120, 113-114, 121, 123, 128; visit to 
Paris on return from Africa, 136 et 
seq.; awarded Nobel Peace Prize, 138 
note; member of Institute of France, 



458 



INDEX 



140; his "two tunes," 141; affection 
for the Bacons, 145 note; admiration for 
the French, 145 note; portrait painted 
by de Lazzlo, 146-147; neutrality 
and preparedness, 225, 234, 238, 257, 
271 ; offer to raise regiment not accepted 
by War Department, 254; supports 
Mr. Bacon in New York Primaries, 
260, 262, 268; Mr. Wilson "kept him 
out of war," 272, 309; thinks Mr. Bacon 
an Anglophile, 357, 367, 373; sons in 
war, 387, 399, 429; death, 429-430, 436. 
Letters to Mr. Bacon, 112, 120, 136 et 
seq., 163, 254 

Roosevelt, Mrs. Theodore, 437 

Roosevelt, Theodore, Jr., 330, 367, 387, 
428, 429, 430 

Root, Elihu, sketch of Mr. Bacon, ix- 
xiii; opinion of Mr. Carnegie, 80 note; 
Secretary of State, 106-125; ^^- ^^' 
con's affection for, 106 note, 399; 
North Atlantic Coast Fisheries Ar- 
bitration, 107-108; interest in Pan 
Americanism, 109-110, Root Doctrine, 
186-188, 192, 196; origin of the Piatt 
Amendment, 113-114 note; interest in 
Cuba, 118; loan to Dominican Repub- 
lic, 1 19-120; Ship Canal Agreement, 
123-124; affection for Mr. Bacon, 125, 
130, 447; letter of instructions for 
Mr. Bacon's South American tour, 
182 et seq., 190, 223, 224, 234; sup- 
ports Mr. Bacon in New York Pri- 
maries, 260, 262, 268; letter to Mr. 
Choate, 266; reconciliation with Mr. 
Roosevelt in interest of preparedness, 
271; head of American Mission to 
Russia, 293 note, 299, 302, 309, 358, 
362, 389, 391; Mr. Bacon regrets Mr. 
Root is not member of Peace Com- 
mission, 419, 424, 435, 440. Letters 
to Mr. Bacon, 130, 182, et seq., 267 

Russia, Germany declares war against, 
202, 208, 292; Mr. Root heads Ameri- 
can Mission to, 293 note; Mr. Bacon's 
faith in, 293, 299, 302 

Saint-Die, anniversary of naming Amer- 
ica, 148 et seq; devastated during war, 
152; Mr. Bacon aids in rehabilitating, 
xviii, 153; celebrates America's entry 
into war, 152-153, 380 

Salisbury, Marquess of, 218 

Sanitary Train of American Ambulance, 
213-214, 321 

San Martin, Jose, 158 

Scarborough, Zeppelin raids on, 307 

Schwab, Charles, 82-83 

Schoenrich, Otto, 114 



Scott, James Brown, 209, 218; letter to, 
221; 224, 358, 389, 416, 431, 433, 435 

Scott, Mrs. James Brown, 358, 431 

Seicheprey, 384 

Senate, Mr. Bacon's campaign for, 258- 
272, 442 

Sergy, 392 

Seringes, 392 

Serbia, 201-202 

Sharp, William G., 206 

Sharp, Mrs. William G., 288 

Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 99, loi 

Sherman, General, letter of, 65 

Simonds, George S., Brigadier General, 
308; letter of, 338,432,434 

Sloggett, Sir Arthur, 220 

Snow, Sir Thomas D'Oyly, 230 

Snow, William J., Major General, 350, 
389 

Solf, Dr. 40^-405 note 

South America, visit to, 181-198 

Sports, X, 15, 16-17, 26-29, 39, 43, 44, 
63, 107, 134, 136, 292, 305, 307, 311- 
312, 319, 343, 347> 349 

State Department, Mr. Root, Secretary 
of, 106-125; ^''- Bacon, Assistant Sec- 
retary, 105; Acting Secretary, 110, 
Secretary, 125-130, 135; cables Secre- 
tary Knox concerning resignation of 
Paris post, 164; Secretary Bryan's 
friendly protest to Great Britain, 216- 
217; German Ambassador handed pass- 
ports, 275; correspondence with German 
officials concerning armistice, 404-405 

Steel, Charles, 89, 91 

Stimson, Henry L., 248, 329, 392 

Straight, Willard D., 215, 216, 291, 416 

Strassburg, celebrates return to France, 
419-420 

Strong, Dr. Richard, 235 

Submarine warfare, 275-276 

Supreme War Council, General Foch 
made Supreme Commander of Allied 
Armies, 353 et seq.; meets to draft 
peace terms, 410 

Sutherland, Duchess of, 425 

Taft, William H., member of Peace Com- 
mission to Cuba, 113-114; proposes in- 
tervention, 117; Provisional Governor 
of, 117; letters to Mr. Bacon 160, 161- 
162 
Taft, Mrs. William H., 116, 117 
Thresher, J. H., Colonel, 233, 278, 294; 
letter to Colonel Wagstaff, 295, 327; 
340, 422, 423 
Thullier, Henry F., Major General, 234 
Titanic, Mr. Bacon cancels sailing to as- 
sist successor at Paris, xvii, 167 



u 



INDEX 



459 



Training Camps, serves as Private at, 
xii, 247-253; supplies machine guns for 
use at, 255, 299, 315 

Trevelyan, Sir George, Mr. Roosevelt's 
letter to, 145 note 

Trimble, Richard, i, 33, 36, 60, 63 

United States Steel Corporation, 80-85 
Universal Service, 258, 265 

Vanderbilt, William K., 339 

Van Nest, W. P., Major, letter of, 254- 

255 note 
Vaux, 384-385 

Valasquez, Federico, 1 19-120 
Verdun, 297 note 

Wadsworth, James W., Jr., 416, 423 

WagstafF, Colonel, letter from Colonel 
Thresher, 295 

Walcott, Dr. letter to, 359, 389 

War, see World War 

War Department, offer to raise regiment 
not accepted by, 254; Mr. Bacon com- 
missioned and detailed to General 
Pershing's Staff, 279-280; Special Or- 
ders, 294, 328, 334, 335, 337, 444 note, 
445 note; Mrs. Bacon's request for pass- 
port refused, 418, 423 

Washburne, Elihu B., 64, 208 

Weld, C. Minor, 58 

Weld, Francis Minor, 58 

Wharton, Mrs. Edith, 143-144 

White, Henry, 133,432 

Whitney, Edward F., 48 

Whitney, Frank, 48 

Whitney, Frederic, 48 

Whitney, George, 48 note; letter to Mr. 
Bacon, 290 note, 313; meets Mr. Bacon 
in Paris, 314 et seq., 339, 374, 434, 437 

Whitney, Mrs. George (Martha Bacon), 
185, 191, 286, 289 note, 297, 302 et 
seq., 340, 374, 434 et seq. 

Whitney, George, Jr. 309, 314, 355 

Whitney, Robert Bacon, 309, 310, 314, 

355 
Whitney, Mrs, Harry Payne, 211 



Whitney Unit, see American Ambulance 
Hospital 

Willis, James D., 99 

Wilson, Sir Henry, 354 

Wilson, Woodrow, Mr. Bacon denies right 
to impose false neutrality, 177; believes 
he should take definite stand against 
German militarism, 208, 209, 236; 
"friendly protest" to Great Britain 
216-217; Mr. Bacon disapproves policy, 
218-219, 220, 224 et seq., 236, 270 et 
seq-. 355; refuses to criticize policy 
while m Europe during neutrality, 
244, 257; disapproves policy of, towards 
Mexico, 265, 269, 270; Mr. Bacon cri- 
ticized by m press statement, 272; in- 
formed by Count von Bernstorff Ger- 
many will begin unrestricted submarine 
warfare next day, 275; directs State 
Department to give Ambassador pass- 
ports, 275; requests Congress to de- 
clare war, 276; Mr. Bacon approves 
action, 278; requested by Prince Max 
to use good offices in obtaining armis- 
tice, 404-405 note; reception in London, 
424, 426, 437 

Wilson, Mrs. Woodrow, 425 

Wirbel, General, 310-311, 320-321, 330, 
415 

Wolf, Paul A., Lieutenant Colonel, letter 
of, 25 s 

Wood, Leonard, Major General, author 
of Article V, Piatt Amendment, 113- 
114 note; military training cr.mps, 
247; account of Mr. Bacon's services 
for preparedness, 248-249, 251, 253, 
299, 324 

World War, beginning of, 201; Mr. Bacon 
believes America will be drawn into, 
201; urges preparedness, 203 et seq.; 
America's entry into, 276; armistice, 

4." 
Wright, William Mason, Major General. 

415 

Zeppelin raids, 307, 308 

Zimmermann, Dr. Alfred, note of, 275-276 



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